Mon Ga
by Athos Aras
Summary: A world with no alchemy, a new oportunity of life... but can they find each other again? they can only know, at the other side of the gate.
1. Death

Just in case someone doesn't know "Mon ga" is the Japanese word for "the gate"

Just in case someone doesn't know "Mon ga" is the Japanese word for "the gate"

I hope you guys like this story better than the rest. And thanks to my beta Silver Sniper.

Enjoy!!

**Mon ga**

"_Where's Hawkeye?" His shout was barely audible over the constant bombing._

"_Dunno´ Chief." Havoc answered distractedly._

"_What do you mean you don't know?!" Mustang shouted back. He stopped for a moment, closing his eyes and forcing himself to calm back down. This was not the place to be angry. Havoc stared back at him with his dirtied face, completely baffled by his recent reaction. _

"_Ill cover you chief." Havoc stated as he re-charged his gun, ready to aim._

"_Thanks" Roy managed to answer before running of to look for her._

That had been thirty minutes earlier…

He still couldn't find her; the rest of the team had come to help after the end of the battle.

"Chief, she's not here." They were all tired, wounded, everything. But she was part of their team, she couldn't be left behind.

"Keep looking for her, she has to be here somewhere" Roy was the one who looked the worse. He appeared as dirty and wounded as the rest, but his eyes showed an absolute disgust. Burning people was far more obscene than shooting them. You could smell them die.

The team spread out, he could hear them arguing which sides to take.

"You look there, Ill take this side…" they all obeyed and everyone headed in different directions while he stayed were he was away from the rest, un-piling bodies covered in red robes and blue jackets.

The sun was starting to set and he could see his breath in the cold air. She had to be somewhere.

He violently shoved one of the bodies aside and shouted into the air.

"Hawkeye!"

Walking a few paces, he entered what was once a small house. It was barely even supporting itself, there was no longer any roof to cover it, and the second floor, was no coating the dirt.

He shifted slowly through the roof pieces and stopped when he heard a barely noticeable cry. less than a cry it was only troubled breathing.

He squinted his eyes and in the darkness he could see… something. No, someone.

He walked closer and saw blonde hair and a blue jacket torn to pieces.

"Hawkeye?" He started to panic.

"Colonel Mustang." She managed to peer out of the hole she was trapped in. Roy's eyes widened as he saw a blood trail coming down her forehead, soaking her disheveled hair.

"Hawkeye!" he started frantically removing pieces of debris and broken straw roof.

"Hang on there Hawkeye!" he cried as he worked.

He finally managed to remove everything from on top of her including the one thing that was keeping her there. A huge piece of beam that had managed to crush her torso, making her barely breathe.

Carefully, he picked her up and placed her on the floor to examine her.

Her jacket was long gone, leaving only her black under shirt covering her body. As dark as it was, he could still see how the constant blood flow had turned it darker still, soaking it through to her pale skin.

He couldn't bring himself to touch her; she looked like she would break even further if he tried.

"It's all right sir." She was cold, her face pale and drenched, her warm breath steaming in the cold sunset.

Softly, He pushed her hair from her face and she gazed back at him. Her eyes had lost their glint and looked awfully dark and hollow.

"You promised Hawkeye, you can't…"

"You can do it yourself, you'll do it right, I know." She cut him off before he could try and reprimand her.

"God, Hawkeye I can barely manage to do paperwork myself." He exclaimed. It was right, of course. Without her, he couldn't even do that.

She stifled a laugh that made her choke and cough slightly. A trail of blood leaked from her mouth at the action.

He lifted her into his arms again.

"Ill take you to camp, you'll be alright." She was like a doll, flopping useless against gravity.

He was about to cross to what was once a door when he heard another cry. It didn't come from Hawkeye. He turned around, and in another corner in the darkness, was a red-eyed boy, crying and holding a doll as if it were life itself.

"Don't worry, I won't hurt you." He spoke softly, attempting to calm the child. He was a boy; he couldn't do anything against the military, why would he need to harm him?

He kneeled with Hawkeye still in his arms , he wanted to help the boy as well but a sound halted his progress. Before he knew what was happening, a gunshot went through his torso and he fell taking Hawkeye with him.

She screamed.

He could see a man standing in front of him, red robes and dark skin. Roy turned limply to face him, which only earned him another shot. He cried out in pain.

The man spared him one last satisfied glance before retreating in to the corner and cradled the child in his arms. He simply sat there as he left the two of them to die there in the middle of nowhere.

"Hawkeye? You okay." Roy whispered, his vision beginning to fade.

But there was no answer.

"Hawkeye." Still no answer. His voice was fading away.

"Haw..keye?" one last call and everything went dark.

"I found them!" Havoc shouted.

As soon as everyone heard him, they ran over to the disheveled house and started removing bricks and debris that barred the way.

"Oh no." Fuery said softly.

Breda walked over and placed his middle and index finger in their necks, searching for any signs of life. But there were none, their faces pale and sallow, discolored lips. They had been like this for a long time.

He crept back up from his kneeling position and they all took of their hats and shed a few tears as they moved the bodies to a more decent place, to bury them.

At least there was some good coming out of this; they would soon meet their long life friend, Maes… wouldn't they?

Please don't give up on the story because of the angst beginning, I promise the rest is not as sad as this.

Please let me know with a review.


	2. London

From now on Ill go, one chapter her one chapter him and so on

From now on Ill go, one chapter her one chapter him and so on.

Enjoy!!

"Where am I?" Riza Hawkeye thought to herself. She figured she couldn't hear her own voice, and she saw nothing but white and was naked. All her senses had been numbed.

She hugged herself in a vain attempt to cover her naked figure. Even though it seemed no one else was there she felt violated.

She walked forward and looked around. Yep she was absolutely and completely alone in who-knows-where. All she could see was white.

White…

That was it! She remembered her dad saying something, commenting to Colonel Mustang when they were just kids.

_She peered through the same hole in the wall she had patiently drilled. She sure felt like a captive moron who pretended to escape by carving a hole into the wall, but those weren't her intentions._

_The hole was meant to allow her to see what her father did so much when he was alone in his study room. Eventually this became _their_ study room. She would occasionally sneak through it when she had nothing else to do. Her father had obviously noticed but kept it to himself; he supposed she was just playing spy or some other seven-year old game. _

_Once when she had finished her homework and was doing nothing but counting the wood pieces in the ceiling, she decided too peak a bit since her father and his new apprentice had been in there for so long. She wanted to play._

"_What's that?" the intrigued nine-year old asked to his master._

_Her father had placed a huge poster in the wall with horribly looking gate._

"_This young man, is what you will see when you die."_

_Riza inhaled abruptly in surprise and immediately clapped her hands over her mouth _

"_Moron" she scolded herself mentally._

_Her father and his apprentice turned too look at the wall._

_Mr. Hawkeye smiled to himself and out of nowhere started talking louder. Roy sent his teacher an odd look, obviously wondering about his change in tone._

"_You need to know this; otherwise you will be trapped in a white empty world forever." _

_Roy looked intrigued._

"_Once you realize where you are you will see-"_

"A door." She whispered to herself and stared at the floor, where ever it was.

She heard an awfully loud noise in the middle of the white silence. She looked up and there it was.

She walked forward highly aware of every step. The humongous door opened and a billion eyes stared at her. She smiled to herself as a group of black arms wrapped around her in a tight embrace and she was sucked into the darkness.

She didn't feel it, nothing at all. But she was able to think, and then she remembered.

Her father had never said what was at the other side.

A bright light hit her eyes and then she was standing in the middle of what seemed to be an alley, a sidewalk stretched not very far from there. A car speed by and a torrent of sounds hit her, making her head ache.

She felt a soft texture against her skin. Clothes, she was wearing clothes.

A ladies trench coat covered her now freezing body, under it where a pair of skin colored panties and a dress? She was wearing a dress. It had been at least fifteen years since she had worn a dress. She didn't even remember how nice it felt.

It was red; wine red, with a white lace around the waist, the long sleeves caressing her stiff arms.

A pair of brown boots covered her feet which were still frozen; she had stopped feeling her toes a while ago.

After realizing what she was wearing she slowly looked around her. It was a complete world at the other side of the gate.

But where was it?

What did they call it?

Who were these people?

What language did they speak?

All these questions stormed suddenly in to her mind, making her head spin.

"Hey honey, are you all right?" an old man that was laying in the sidewalk half drunk. He didn't seem particularly wealthy either, his coat looked ragged and old, his pale bearded face was dirty and his blue eyes stared at her wondering figure. Why was he talking so strangely?

"Umm. Sir, could you please tell me what year it is? And where?"

The man looked completely surprised and seemed that wasn't the ´all right´ he was asking about. But he finally seemed to find a reason to her questioning, or some of it.

"I see, your new here aren't you? It's December the first of 1929. Welcome to London sweetie." He smiled a rotten, ugly and lustful smile.

She immediately regretted asking _this_ man for the date and time.

She looked around, a huge building/tower showed the hour on its four sides.

"Eight AM." She said more to herself.

"That's it, rush hour milady." He smiled again.

She didn't want to be rude so she threw him an insincere smile of disgust.

She walked up the side walk to take a look at the place, people here- London was it?- talked strangely, it was still English but a strange version of the one she originally knew.

To her, it sounded like their tongues were tied.

It was a pretty place, this London, but as the old man had said, it was rush hour; the streets were full of people and cars, very noisy cars.

She walked and walked around finding herself desperate and in an awful need of information. Riza Hawkeye had always been that kind of person. She needed to know everything that was going on, and that had never happened in central or were ever she was when she was alive. That reminded her…

Colonel Mustang how was he? She was dead wasn't she, back there or wherever it was? Was he dead too? Was he here?…

She dismissed these thoughts from her head immediately. He couldn't be dead, or here. He was Roy Mustang, he couldn't die that easily.

She found herself standing in the middle of the side walk in front of a place called ´Silver Hawkeye.´ Now that sounded familiar.

She entered the shop, a bell ringing behind the closing door. It was a metal piece shop. There were two counters cornered in the shape of an L and behind seemed to be someone's living place, full of junk and completely disorganized. Among the trashy area behind the counter she saw a folded newspaper that said something about a place called ´USA.´ the main title on the front page in big, fat, black letters read

**GREAT DEPRESSION: NEW YORK STOCK MARKET CRASH.**

**The stock market crash the past October creates great damage to European industry and economy. British government will apply new tariffs.**

What was that? She didn't have the faintest idea of what New York was but if the words **market, stock **and** depression **were involved it was never good. The tiny bold letter were the last thing she could read, the rest was not visible.

She wandered around the store, many metallic parts and other junk pieces were randomly scattered everywhere. Right in the middle there was a tall counter where smaller pieces were stuffed in wooden boxes. She could easily see the parts with which she would be able to build a simple gun. But she was no sniper here; in fact she had not the least idea of who she was.

The bell of the door rang again but she paid no attention to it. She started playing with the metal pieces, and she caught the beginnings of a conversation.

"Good morning" called a male voice. It had same tongue tied accent. He sounded familiar though.

A door creaked open and another male was heard talking.

"Oh good morning." He said. The other man must be the manager, his voice sounded deeper.

"Eddie, how are you? I was wondering if my new pieces were here."

"They arrived here yesterday." He sounded farther away. A noisy shuffle of metal and boxes was heard, disturbing sounds just like outside, compared to the peace she found inside the shop.

Change shuffling in pockets sounded, the coins were dropped on the wooden counter.

"Is that enough."

"Sure like always."

"Thanks, nice seeing you Eddie."

"Nice to see you too young man."

He walked back to the door, and Riza poked her head out in a lame interest to know who was so familiar with the manager.

A man crossed the space in front of the counter where Riza was standing, a man with black hair and dark eyes.

She kept playing with her metal pieces, until it hit her

_Dark hair and Dark eyes…_

She looked up from her creation to the window where she could see the customer walking. He was the spilling image of Roy Mustang himself. She dropped whatever she was doing and headed out to the cold and loud city, leaving behind an extremely bewildered shop owner.

"Colonel" she shouted. But he didn't turn.

_He was dead too, she couldn't believe it_.

"Colonel!" she was closer now, but shouted even harder.

He still didn't turn.

She grabbed his shoulder rudely and forced him to see her.

"Roy Mustang!" she said to his face.

He turned to see right, then left and then he stared at her.

"Uh, me?" he asked absolutely stunned.

"Yes Sir." She was getting mad, what was wrong with him, didn't he recognize her.

"Huh, I'm sorry. My name is Jack Royalton." He said and gave in for a handshake, with a broad smile.

Hope you liked this chapter, if not review… and if you did please review anyways.

Thanks for your support ( and to my Beta as well).


	3. France

"What the-" He said to himself

Hey Chapter three is up, hope you're liking my story.

Enjoy!!

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"What the-"He said to himself.

He looked around; all he could see was white. There was nothing else.

"Where the hell am I?" he asked himself again. Not until then did he figure he couldn't hear his own voice. Surprise number one. Then he discovered he was naked, surprise number two.

He started thinking of it, putting the pieces of the puzzle together.

_White…_

Of course, he was dead now. As soon as he realized where he was, an enormous gate appeared in front of him.

So this was it, the gate his teacher had thought him about.

The gigantic doors opened and a billion eyes stared at him with an empty interest. _They're hungry_

He advanced, but not enough to get to the door when a blinding light reached him. But there was something else, something just beyond his reach. Before he could contemplate this further, the blinding light disappeared.

It diminished slowly until he was able to see again. What he saw scared him even more than the light itself.

It was a city, a complete city, with _people_ and _cars_ and, well _people_.

"What the-?" then he was even more surprised, he wasn't speaking English. He wasn't even thinking in English. His head had somehow managed to adapt in this _new world_.

He was sitting in a dirty alleyway, which was not only dirty but _smelled_ dirty. He brought himself to his feet (he had somehow landed on his butt).

He exited the alley and headed to a sidewalk, then felt the chilling cold air hit his body straight.

_Cold…_

"Ahh…" a shadow of a scream escaped his mouth, more like a gasp for air. He looked down to his body to see that he was clothed.

He was wearing a turtleneck white sweater. He pulled its neck to see a white undershirt. His pants were classy, straight and black, but his shoes were the funniest part. They were ball dance shoes. He, the man, the one who had always worn boots or nothing at all, was wearing ball dance shoes. He had never seen them before; they were shiny black and tapped a curious sound every time he walked. But they felt nice.

Over the dark clothing was a black wool tux jacket that kept his chest from freezing, but his legs were.

He turned his head from side to side to inspect the place and felt something at the top of his head.

A red boina.

He grabbed the strange artifact and twiddled it in his hands. He shrugged his shoulders in confusion and placed it back on his head… backwards.

He gazed at the streets full of people and suddenly stopped feeling so classy. Some people around him wore the same kind of dress he did; other men wore small hats with strange shapes and pointed tuxedos, while walking with small fancy canes. Women wore exotic hats with almost offensive plumage and fat skin coats. A million smells filled his nose, those of clogged water suage and a nightfall that brought snow, but most of all the people that passed around him gave him the smell of heavy cologne substituting a shower, that made him want to puke.

He walked along the streets aimlessly. Nightfall was coming and the amount of lights and sounds that came with it were amazing, specially an awfully tall tower that stretched down in to four fat legs, it seemed to be made of metal, but it looked beautiful in the sunset warm colored lights.

He leaned against a street lamp and was immediately ushered away.

"Hey you get off of my lamps!" he grunted.

"Sorry sir didn't see you there." Roy answered in their own odd language.

"Yeah not many people do." He calmed his temper easily.

"Should I help you?" he asked seeing the man struggle with the matches, the oil and the ladder.

"That's a good idea sonny." He answered quickly and shoved the ladder into Roy's ribs. He puffed cold air out and grabbed the ladder.

The man was about the height of Roy's elbow and walked with difficulty along the endless streets lighting each lamp, one by one.

"Let me try." Roy answered. With alchemy this could be so much easier.

The man stared at him as he drew the transmutation circle in the sidewalk with a match. He lighted it and placed it in the middle, then placed his hands on its edge as he did when he was a child, but nothing happened. No flashing light or burning oil. Nothing.

He retracted his hands and explored the circle for any flaw but found none.

"Gimme that sonny. Aren't you to old to play drawing in the sidewalks boy?"

He stared at the man as he kept doing his work and then looked back to his circle. Was this his punishment? Finally he found something that made sense and at the same time had none. They had taken his alchemy away from him, his power of destruction. This was the first proof to him that he was indeed at the other side of the gate.

"Wait!" he shouted to the man, he had advanced about three lamps now while he was there sitting thinking. Even though he possessed no alchemy at all, he was still taller than him and helped him finish his work, without the need of a ladder.

By the time they finished with all the lamps in the street Roy felt something he hadn't felt in a long time, satisfaction.

"Thanks Sonny, not many help old Ruffe here."

The old man with his ragged clothes and dirty face moved his tired figure to the edge of a sidewalk and sat there with his legs almost dangling from the edge.

He pulled a bottle from his jacket with his sock gloved hands and opened it.

He poured in a fresh gulp of the liquid that Roy assumed by the bottle it was liquor, and by the smell it was a cheap brand of whisky.

"Going home son, coming?" he asked. A life-saving offer to Roy. He hadn't thought he was sleeping on the streets, he had nothing but what he was wearing.

"Yes sir, thank you." He answered. He heard something like _oiu_ come out of his mouth.

He caught up with him quickly.

They walked slowly because of Ruffe´s short legs. He wasn't a dwarf person but he sure wasn't very tall.

"You're not from around are you?" They crossed the street.

"No sir."

"What's your name boy?" They started heading down the sidewalk.

"Roy, Roy Mustang."

"Roi?"

"Yes sir." He guessed the accent wasn't working on him.

"You mean Roi as in King?" He guessed it was supposed to sound something like that.

Old Ruffe crossed inside a twisting alley, and laughed at his awkward name. Roy followed.

"Where do you come from young man?"

"Amestris Sir."

"Don't know where that is."

Sure he didn't. He seriously doubted that anyone around here would.

He opened a door to a fence, which led to a garden.

"Where do you live?"

Oho…

Where _did_ he live?

"Aahh, I don't know sir." He added a bit ashamed, scratching the back of his neck.

But Old Ruffe just smiled, more like grinned a yellowish, barbed grin.

"You don't live _here_ do you?"

WhatdoIdowhatdoIwhatdoI…. He had absolutely no idea what to tell the old man.

"You too."

What? What did he mean by _you too?_

"I'm sorry, what?"

"I should've guessed by your chalk game in that sidewalk. You don't belong to this world do you?"

He knew, about the gate, he knew?

"No, sir." He answered, a deep sadness covered his heart, he missed Amestris and everyone already, his comrades, his job, his alchemy and his old life.

"I know people like you, but they don't stay here. People like you can do big things in here."

He opened the door to his old shabby house. A candle was lit on top of a wooden table.

"Welcome back" a feminine voice spoke, a woman's figure glowed in the dim light at the end of a hallway, but Roy couldn't make out the person itself due to the poor light.

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Please let me know if you liked it or not, through a review…


	4. Jack

Hope you like this Chapter

Hope you like this Chapter!

Enjoy!!

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She didn't answer the handshake. She simply stared at his smiling face for what seemed like hours. Finally he broke the ice, his hand still in the air.

"I'm sorry ma´m, but you look a little … confused."

She didn't answer; she just stared in to his face, moving her gaze across it, taking in every inch of him. She looked at his clothes, his body, his face, and his smile… his eyes. This really wasn't Roy Mustang.

"I'm sorry to have disturbed you Sir." She stated crisply, and walked back towards the store.

"No wait!" he held her arm to turn her around, far less violently than she had done previously.

She stood there looking back at him. "What?" she asked eventually, since he didn't say anything. He couldn't find the proper words to… to keep her from leaving. He didn't have many friends.

"Who are you?" he finally asked. _Uh, that was probably the most stupid way to start a conversation _he scolded himself mentally.

None the less Riza answered. "Elizabeth Hawkeye Sir." He let go of her arm which he was still holding.

"Nice to meet you." He said again and this time he did receive his handshake.

He started walking and she followed at his side.

"So, you're new here I see."

"Yes, actually I'm a little lost."

He chuckled "Yeah, sometimes London can be pretty rough"

"So what are you here for?"

Oho…

_I died and ended here at the other side of an enormous gate that took me from my world to this place you call 'London'._

Yeah, that didn't seem like the right thing to say.

"I'm a…" Come on Riza think quickly.

"I'm a… I don't know."

"Well perhaps you would like to come with me."

Oh, God… that would be wonderful, you have no idea how lost I feel.

"Yes thank you."

They walked in silence for the next ten minutes or so. She didn't know what to say since she was afraid to reveal anything that might blow her cover, make her look like a lunatic that came from another world.

He didn't say anything, because he didn't know what to say. It was one of those awkward moments when everything you think of saying is just not right, not proper.

He opened the door for her into a small lot that said ´Royalton clocks and watches´ He was a horologist.

She answered with a barely mumbled "Thank You"

"And this is my place." He said plainly.

"I know it's not much but it's all I've got, and rougher times are coming so-"

"It's amazing." She interrupted absently.

The place was full of clocks and watches', hanging everywhere, ticking different rhythms, their individual sounds filling the air.

Just like the other shop, there was a counter at the back where a small door would let staff in.

"You like it?" he was completely stunned by the fact that this woman liked an old rusty clock shop.

"Well, would you like to see how they're fixed?" he asked motioning with his hand to the back of the counter.

She nodded with a head bowl. Her hands still dipped in her pockets in an attempt to maintain her body temperature. She still felt frozen to her bones.

He took his coat of and offered to take hers but she neglected to leave the warmth of her trench coat.

They went to the back of the shop were wooden boxes were piled everywhere and pocket watches were randomly scattered.

"Good morning Eugene." He yelled.

No one answered but the lights to a small room were on.

He stood there in front of the door and repeated his cry. A man lifted a hand in response.

"Eugene is my only worker and his soon retiring. His dumb, as in speechless."

Riza was quite surprised by the fact but didn't show emotion at all, as always.

He went to another room next to that one where the lights were out. He turned them on and headed to a large table covered in small pieces. Chains, screws, screwdrivers and a million other pieces of similar sizes covered the room.

He sat at the table and lit a small lantern; he then placed a pair of small glasses at the end of his nose, similar to the ones Eugene was using. He started working.

Riza wondered around watching the pieces and screw a few things back together.

"So, where are you staying?"

_I have no idea._

"I don't have a place to stay."

"Great." A smile crept into his face. Riza stared at him in a confused manner.

"I mean, no, not good. But you can stay here if you want." He amended hastily.

"Thank you." She answered back.

She kept playing with the pieces. He glanced at her form the corner of his eye, once in a while.

"These pieces, they're similar to the ones in a gun."

"A what?"

"A… I mean. I know these pieces."

"Great, try and fix one for me." He shoveled a million pocket watches from wooden boxes scattered around, looking for something easy for her.

"Here." He threw a pocket watch at her, which she skillfully caught.

"This one has its needles stuck by some reason. Try and fix it."

Riza inspected the watch in her hands and grabbed the nearest screw driver.

He stood up next to her watching what she did.

"Stop." She said. Shoving the watch away from his prying sight.

He lifted his hands in innocence. Riza had always needed her space. It annoyed her like hell every time Colonel Mustang did the same when she was doing something personal and he wanted to know what it was. But he was far more resilient to her cold words. He would stay there until she threatened him.

Jack, on the other hand, just moved back immediately.

As Riza pulled the back cap, she immediately spotted what was wrong and fixed it in a second.

"There." She said handing him the watch.

"Wow, nice work. You're talented."

"Thank you." She answered.

"Would you like to work for me?"

"What?" he was hiring her?

"You heard me. You can stay here as long as you want, but you work for me." He said slowly, as if explaining something to a small child.

"Oh, well I guess I can." She wondered what she would have done if this version of Roy Mustang hadn't appeared.

It seemed that even in other worlds he always managed to save her life.

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I know the ending is kind of, well weird but I had no other ideas. I hope you liked this chapter.

Please let me know with a review.

By the way, I won't be posting the next one in a while because I'm heading to Australia and I'm not taking my computer with me. So Ill be pretty much disconnected. Sorry about that, but I promise when I'm back Ill make it up to you guys.


	5. Jean

Hey guys, sorry I've been missing for so long. Thanks for the kind reviews… I hope you like this Chapter.

Enjoy!!

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"Hi there Antoinette sweetie!! How are you doing?" the old man asked as a tall, young woman leaned down to kiss his cheek.

"I made dinner" came the soft reply.

"Oh good!" The old man seemed so happy about this answer.

"Good thing I made food to spare." She looked at Roy

"You must be hungry"

He was starving, but he dared not say a thing.

The girl before him was not ugly at all, but she wasn't beautiful either. Her short hair that was resting on her shoulders curled in a funny way, contrasting perfectly with her round, pale face. Her blue eyes stood out dramatically within her pale features.

She smiled at him and he smiled back. She seemed to be exactly his age.

They started setting the table.

"Where are you from?" she asked with that smile still plastered in her face. But before Roy could say such a thing, the old man interrupted.

"He's one of them" he grunted.

Roy stared, confused by the statement. Were _them _really that bad?

They eventually sat at the table and had a wonderful meal. Roy couldn't tell if he was hungry enough, or if the food was that good.

"Do you need a place to sleep?" The girl asked sweetly.

"Oh, if it's not too much trouble, I have nowhere to go. But I promise I will eventually repay my debt with you if you allow me to stay with you for a while."

"I'm sorry boy, but how do you expect to pay us back if you have nothing?"

Oh. Well that was a good question.

"You will accompany my daughter to work tomorrow to see if you can get a decent job."

"Do you like to sew?" the lady asked.

"To what?" He wasn't familiar with the term.

"Oh God." The old man brought a hand to his forehead.

"Don't worry Father, I already know where he can work."

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"What is this place?" Roy was absolutely and completely overwhelmed. There was a whole street dedicated to sewing, they had everything, buttons, thread, needles, cloth of any kind, any type of thing that involved sewing.

"Come on" Antoinette pulled his hand towards the sewing alley.

"This is where I work." She said proudly.

It was definitely a place to be proud of. Surrounded by humble shops, she stopped outside of a bridal store. A beautiful place with pale yellow walls and a window that showed the beautiful dresses any bride would want.

"Miss Clarisse is the owner, or my boss however you would like to call her. But you won't work here; you'll be there… hopefully."

She pointed a dull looking shop, a tailor shop.

"What! There is no way I'm working there, it's a girls shop!"

She stared at him as if he were stupid.

"What?!"

"Have you ever heard of a tailor before?" She was starting to feel annoyed.

"Well yeah… sort of. Isn't that the guy who goes like the wrong way and works on girl stuff?"

Antoinette sighed; she had a long way to explain this man how to work on the clothing industry.

"Jean!!" she called out to the empty store.

_Jean... Jean Havoc?_

A light-haired man walked out of a cramped office in the back of a counter. His thin tall body made his looks quite refined, not to mention his position was so awfully straight. This man would've made a great soldier, except he would probably break something so easily he would permanently be in the infirmary.

Even though his looks were not common, he had a certain masculine air in him that made Roy feel slightly better about this new work of his.

"Jean this is Roy, Roy this is Jean… he is a Tailor" She repeated at Roy as if he were dumb.

"Pleased to meet you Roy." He stopped sewing something that looked like a shirt as he headed for a handshake.

Roy hesitantly accepted it.

"Ok, Roy. You need to understand a few things. First, Tailors sew but they don't make clothes, they fix them. Second…"

…And for the next thirty minutes or so Antoinette explained Roy the basics of sewing, un-sewing and re-sewing.

"Right…" he still didn't seem completely convinced of what he was meant to do. So Jean managed to give him a different work. A rather unpleasant one…

"What!!"

Roy stood sitting in front of a large table with more than a hundred tin boxes at the edge and an enormous pile of buttons that were meant to be organized in those boxes.

"If you wouldn't mind, please" His so educated manners were starting to make him a very detestable person.

"YOU want ME to put THESE in THOSE BOXES?!!" He pointed at every single thing as he almost spelled every word.

"Yes." Jean answered, as if he were asking him to tie his shoelaces.

He banged his head on the table, causing several buttons to jump and some to fall off the table.

Jean left him with his frustration deciding he would eventually start his work. Otherwise, there were more expert tailors out there. The problem was they all wanted more money.

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"Wow, very nice work." Jean whispered to himself.

Every single box was full the buttons of the same kind, and on the clean table was Roy sound asleep. He was no Tailor, in fact he barely knew what a needle was, but he was a hard worker.

"Roy!" a feminine voice called, shouting from the shop as the bell in the door rang. Jean came out to attend Antoinette.

"If you don't mind, I would like to give him lodgings myself." He requested of beautiful lady Antoinette.

"Why?" she asked, bemused.

"Well, I don't know, he seems like a nice man. I would like to spend some time with him."

"Ok, I'll tell Papa."

"Nice to see you Antoinette."

"Nice to see you too" she waved back at him as she left the room.

Jean retired to his place and kept working for a few minutes before he headed to wake up Roy.

"Roy." He said softly.

No coherent answer came from him, just a wordless grumble.

"Roy." He said louder

He did not wake.

"Roy." He started shaking him slightly.

"I'll do that later Hawkeye." He mumbled and turned his head to the other side, revealing the table marks on his left cheek.

"Roy" he said loudly in a lazy tone, he was getting tired of trying.

"No guns please! Don't shoot me!" he shouted, but refused to wake up.

Guns?... maybe if he…

He grabbed a stapler that was nearby and pressed it against his garbed neck.

_Click!_

His head snapped up in a second as he shouted like crazy.

"I'll work ok, I'll work but don't shoot!"

Jean was scared to death by his reaction.

"What?" he asked absolutely puzzled.

"Uhh… I, I mean. Nothing, never mind." He struggled, finally figuring he was no longer in his world.

"We're leaving" he stated, still a little crazed by Roy's reaction.

"What? Wait what about Antoinette and old Ruffe and … well me?" He stood up from his chair following the man everywhere.

"You're living with me." He answered simply, as he looked for his coat in a rack and went around the place securing doors and turning off lights.

"Why?" Roy asked with his hands in the air.

Jean stopped dead on a lock he was placing in the back door.

"Do you want a house?" He asked as if it where that simple.

"Well yes, but I had one with them" he pointed to the direction where the house was meant to be.

"Well now you have one with me." He kept rushing around the place, making sure everything was secure and closed up for the night.

Roy dropped his arms in a vague sign of a lost discussion. What did he care of having _a_ house or _the_ house… he just needed a house.

As they walked through the half frozen sidewalk, Roy breathed out white clouds and rubbed his arms in an attempt to warm himself.

"You're cold" Jean stated, walking as easily as in a summer evening.

_Gee what a genius…_

He was wearing a long trench coat that kept covered his ´uniform.´ A white dress-up shirt covered by a nice brown chest jacket, his straight pants looked just like Roy's, except they were brown like his chest jacket. His slightly long hair was combed backwards, exposing his handsome face.

"No kidding?" he replied, wasn't it obvious enough that he WAS cold?

They walked a few blocks and he shuffled keys in his pocket and finally found the ones he was looking for. He opened the door and Roy entered right behind him, throwing his back against the door in a freezing mode.

Jean rolled his eyes and hung his trench coat on a nearby coat rack. Then he opened a closet and shuffled through a few coats.

"Here" he threw a sweater in Roy's face.

"This'll keep you warm enough." He then grabbed another coat and placed it in the rack.

"This one is yours, use it to go outside. I don't want you to get pneumonia."

The man finally walked inside closely followed by Roy.

"So this is my house, welcome."

He sounded like a circus man to Roy just then.

"Your room is over there, mine is right in front, that is the kitchen next to the dining room, and this is the living room." He finished his quick introduction and started feeding the fire in the small chimney.

Roy walked over to ´his´ room. It was a nice place he had to give him that.

A single bed was placed in the middle of the room and in front of it was a small desk with a stack of paper, ink and a quill. A closet was shoved at the end of the room.

At each side of the bed there were small nightstands one with a lamp placed over it. However, there was no need for it, the sun broke through the wide window and illuminated the room enough, but the curtains were thick enough to make Roy sleep until noon without even noticing.

"It was my brother's room." He said appearing out of nowhere.

"Where did he go?"

"He died last year." He said as plainly as he had been talking so far, but yet, Roy was able to hear the small lump that had made its way up his throat.

"Oh, sorry about that."

"No worries."

That night Roy slept like a log. He dreamed of Amestris, Central, of HQ and his companions. What had happened to them? What happened to Hawkeye, did she die as well? Was she here somewhere? Or were they all mourning over poor Colonel Mustang that had gotten his Lt. and himself killed?

Were they mourning at all?

He did sleep like a log, but the next morning he felt he hadn't, because he felt that somewhere, something was incomplete and he was uncomfortable not knowing what happened to his subordinates, to his life... and to Hawkeye.

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Hope you liked it. Chapter 6 will be up soon. Please review


	6. Questions

Okay, here's chapter 6… hope you like the rest of the story. Thanks for reading.

Enjoy!!

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"Riza...?" A male voice sounded in the empty clock shop.

"I'm here!" she shouted form her new work room.

Jack headed to the place behind the counter. During the few weeks Riza had spent in Jack's home/clock shop, she had acquired her own little work room that eventually became her bedroom. Nothing to fancy, a bed was cornered at the opposite side of the door while at one side of it was her desk. Over the desk were a big lamp and a series of small boxes up against the wall filled with small pieces and a carton box filled with pocket watches.

She was finishing a watch she placed inside a small satin bag and tagged with the owners name.

"What?" she asked without turning to him. She knew he was there, its called peripheral vision. But even though she knew he was there, he said nothing, didn't move either.

"Jack?" she asked worried and stopped her work to take a glance at him.

He was carrying a bag, a big bag full of something bundled up.

"Here" he handed her the bag.

"What is it?" she asked putting her tiny whiny screwdriver on the desk and taking the bag gently from his grasp.

"I passed through Mel's house and she gave me these. She said you looked like you were maybe a size under, but these would fit."

Riza stared at him as if she didn't know what he was handing her.

They were dresses, about three of them. And a few more winter clothes, socks, skirts a scarf and thank god for a small dark bag that she presumed where underwear.

"Thanks" she said, and placed the bag next to her bed and continued her work. But he interrupted.

"Now that I made you this beautiful favor…" She knew this was too good to be for free. She rolled her eyes and dismissed the idea of ever re-engaging her work.

"What now Jack?" She knew what he wanted, but took her chance, a little hope.

"Tell me a story- He said as if he where a little boy – a story about you, where do you come from? What did you do there? Where you a horologist too? Because you know you're awfully good at this work…"

Unlike the real Roy Mustang this man would never shut up, he wanted to know everything and had no secrets. Unlike Roy he told her everything she asked him, he was …

She stopped her train of though right there. She had to stop comparing these two men, it made no sense.

"Why do you want to know so much about me?"

"I'm curious…" Okay that was something Roy had as well, in incredible proportions. Stop…

"Okay, one question." She agreed and pulled her chair away from the desk to pay all her attention to him.

"Who are you?" He said completely absorbed.

She stared, her glasses focusing her eyes and her elbows resting on her knees. She forgot about ever trying to deal with this man.

"Okay, that one doesn't count." She said and pulled her chair closer to her desk to resume her work.

"Oh come on. What should I ask then?" I've got so many questions." In that he was just like Edward.

"I said one question, and focus on something, one specific subject and that's it." She was absolutely limiting herself to him; she didn't want her old life to interfere with this new one. It just didn't seem right.

"Okay- He seemed to be sorting out what to ask, he had to choose well he only had one – What did you work for?"

_Of all the questions he had to choose it had to be this one. _

She looked down to the floor with certain sadness in the back of her eyes.

"I was a soldier, Jack, a lieutenant." A strange coat of sadness overwhelmed her voice, but as always it was hard for people to recognize her feelings and emotions.

She didn't look up from the floor.

"Really, like for what army. It wasn't the British army was it, ´cause you don't sound British you know. Oh so that was why you called me Colonel. - He had to bring _that_ up – So your superior looked like me? Cool, do you think I would look like a good colonel, or maybe General or maybe higher. You know."

"Yes- she muttered absently and lifted her gaze to him – you would make a great Colonel, and a Fuhrer." She sighed. But he didn't notice her sorrow. He was too busy imagining adventures. That was so unlike Roy, he was never too much for adventure. He did what he did because he had to, not because he enjoyed it.

"What's wrong?" he asked innocently.

"Nothing" she said cutting of the flow in her emotions immediately. He didn't need to know anything more.

He didn't seem convinced, but let it go.

Riza started to pick her screwdriver to keep working but he interfered.

"Wait."

"What?" She asked staring at him wondering why had he grabbed her hand and stopped her from getting her screwdriver.

"Let's take a free day." He said out of nowhere.

"What? Are you crazy? Have you seen how many watches are due on Monday?"

"Exactly" he emphasized closing his face to hers, she didn't move, just looked a little confused.

"Monday Riza, it's Saturday. You can work all day tomorrow if you want to. But today you're taking a day off, with me." He smiled. A sweet smiled that to Riza´s eyes meant ´evil plans ´ for this evening.

"What?" she was actually pretty scared of what went on in this mans head.

"Yep, you heard me." He pulled her hand for her to stand up and dragged her out the door. She closed her coat against her as if the tighter the warmer, but it didn't get any warmer.

"Jack, it's freezing out here and you want us out." She complained.

"Cant you see it Riza, its mid winter and the sun is out _in London_" he emphasized.

Riza looked confused; she obviously didn't know that during winter London was permanently sad looking, always cloudy and dark.

"Come on." He started dragging her again, all the way down the street.

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"Do you like it?" he asked as he took another sip of his tea.

"It's nice." She answered still a little bewildered.

"You see. It's not so bad to be out here, I mean out of the store. When I said that you would work there and therefore allowed living there, I didn't mean I would kick you out if you didn't."

"Really? If I were an old ugly lazy woman you would still let me live there."

"Well…"

"You see."

"But you're not lazy … or old, or ugly" He kept his gaze down to his cup of tea.

Riza´s expression didn't change.

"Tell me, Jack. Why did you let me in into your house not even knowing me?"

"People come inside my home everyday, it's a shop."

"That's not what I meant, you know what I mean. Why did you give me a house, food a work and a life, if I came out of the street and told you that you were someone else?"

"I… I don't know." He did know, but it wasn't something she was meant to know.

"Thank you" he looked up to her. "Not many people would've done that for anybody."

"So… this guy, you called me. He was a colonel wasn't he?" he asked eager to change the subject. Riza´s face changed. Now it was her turn to glance at the cup.

"Yeah."

"Who was he? Do I look so much like him?"

"You have no idea how alike you two are."

"Was he you're boyfriend?"

"No he was my superior. Relationships aren't aloud between military men and women."

"Wow, that's harsh."

"Yeah."

"And where you like some kind of war hero or something?"

"There's no such thing as a war hero."

"Really?"

"Hey, I said one question you already had three!"

"Aw, come on. You just asked why I didn't kick you out. Let's make a deal. One question each, no lies."

"Fine, but me first."

"Ok."

"How old are you?"

"32" _he was also 32._

"Now me. What did you do as a lieutenant?"

"I can't answer that."

"Why? I answered your question."

"I asked you your age Jack."

"I asked you what you did at work. It's not like you killed anyone." Her objection made him mad enough that the last sentence escaped his mouth. He didn't mean to…

But the look of hurt in her face…

"I killed millions Jack." She answered coldly and left the table.

Now he really wanted to bang his head in the table.

Hope you like this chapter, if you find anything odd feel free to correct anything you want. Thanks again.


	7. Claire

Okay, I've been having abnormal bursts of imagination lately, so Chapters are coming pretty quickly lately. Hope you like the story, if you do please review, if you don't … do so anyways. Any kind of review is accepted

Enjoy!!

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"Good morning" Jean greeted cheerfully, a warm cup of tea in his hand and another one he faintly pushed down the counter towards Roy.

Roy just grunted in response.

"Sleep well?" he asked, noticing Roy's grunting.

"I did, but I don't understand why I'm still so tired." He rubbed his eyes in an attempt to wake up.

"Here." He said as he handed him his cup of tea and a strange looking bread.

They both sat at the table for a quick breakfast.

"So… are you going to tell me who this Hawkeye guy is?" he asked taking another fancy sip of his tea.

"She's not a guy."

"Oh, so your girlfriend threatened to shoot you in your sleep."

"She's not my girlfriend either. She was my lieutenant." He took a sip of his tea.

"Right?"

"It's true."

"So you're a military man. British?"

"What's that?"

Jean squinted at him as he were stupid. "You don't know what Great Britain is?"

"Should I?" He was confused.

"I suppose so, if you belong to this world." He reassured.

"I doubt that." Roy whispered under his breath.

"What?" he glanced back at him while sitting up to reach something.

"Nothing."

"Here." He handed Roy something else, something soft, wrapped in fine paper.

"What is it?" he asked as he inspected the item without opening it.

"It's your uniform. I noticed you've been using the same clothes. Put that on to work, there's some other stuff back at the shop that should fit, clothes that nobody claimed."

"Thanks."

"So, if you weren't British, or French; because you're French is awful. Then maybe you were … mmm German? Austrian? Any of those?"

Roy stared at him having, no clue of what he was talking about.

"Don't you know what army you belonged to?"

Of course, he belonged to the Amestrian army, located in central city Central headquarters, but he doubted that he should divulge that information.

"You are one strange man."

He didn't say anything he just drank his cup of tea and ate his bread and then followed him out to work.

Roy helped Jean open the shop and get everything ready for the day. After this was done, Jean lead him into his office.

"Uhh … okay, there seems to be little you can do here now. Why don't you go right across the street and ask for Miss Clarisse. Ask her if she could sell us ten yards of white linen; Ill need that for those shirts. Here" he handed Roy a roll of money and a paper with the order. "That should be enough. Go on."

Roy took the money and walked right across the street where the wedding dresses were exposed. Was this the shop?

He walked inside and a bell chimed over his head. Immediately Antoinette appeared through a curtain that led behind the counter.

"Oh, Roy hi. What can I get for you?"

"Umm, I was looking for Miss Clarisse, I need ten yards of white linen."

"Oh, yeah. I forgot to tell Jean." She got closer to whisper in his ear. "They fought again." Roy stared at her completely confused.

"Who fought?" Roy asked in a normal tone of voice. Antoinette immediately shushed him.

"Sorry. Who fought?" he whispered.

"Ms. and Mrs. Clarisse." She whispered back.

There were two of them.

"You're looking for Miss Clarisse; she's the one with the Textile shop. Walk down this street and just around the corner you'll see the textile shop. Ask for Miss Clarisse there."

"Oh, thanks." He said and left. He walked down the street and turned the corner, just like Antoinette had said, the textile shop was standing right there.

He entered the shop, the same dinging sound from the usual bell over the door.

There was no one there behind the counter, but there was a bell to ring in case you needed help. He rang it. Just a few seconds later a familiar face appeared among the rolls of fabric and walked towards him with a certain business air.

"Can I help you?" She asked simply.

"Hawkeye!?" he shouted both surprised and confused. What was she doing here? Did she die too? What happened back at Amestris? He suddenly felt a surge of happiness in him, that he was not alone in this new world, that Hawkeye had followed him, even here.

He felt so extraordinarily happy that he hugged her, a strong almost bone crushing hug.

But she didn't move for a minute or two and he didn't either until she drew him away.

"Okay did my mother send you?!" She was mad. Why was she mad? They were alive, sort of. And why was she asking about her mother, she had passed away long time ago.

"No."

"Yeah, that's what they all say. Get out."

He suddenly remembered what he was doing there.

"Wait but I need-"

"Out, I said out. And tell my mother she can keep her cute boys for someone who really wants to get married!"

She wasn't mad, she was furious. About her mother trying to set her up? This wasn't Hawkeye, but who was she? And why did she look exactly like her? At least she thought he was cute.

He stopped thinking when someone was trying to shove him out the door.

Out!" she shouted and pushed him as hard as she could, but didn't move him an inch.

"What?!" he exclaimed in confusion, what was wrong with this woman.

"God what is your head made of steel? I said OUT!"

Even though she wasn't capable of moving him, and seemed to be half his weight; he courteously moved towards the door and went outside.

She glared through the window with a look of triumph feeling strong for kicking him out; when in reality she had done nothing of the sort.

The rest of the morning went by quickly; it was already late when he got there. So he waited for at least four hours or so in front of the big window that exposed the gigantic rolls of textile. And every now and then she would glance at him maliciously almost like Hawkeye, but not exactly like her. She looked different; her gaze's weren't as cold as Hawkeye's.

Eventually she crossed the door to get her lunch and he walked beside her like some kind of stalker or something.

"Stop following me." She complained without looking at him and walking even faster.

"I just have a few questions." He said. Having a hard time keeping pace with her, people on the streets were always getting in his way.

"Yeah that's what they all say, and then they get all touchy and Mellifluous."

"No- Roy stuttered dodging an old lady with a big hat. –I. what?!"

He didn't even know what that meant.

"You know what I mean, and if you don't then go ask my mother and give her my message as well."

She walked around the corner and across the street to a small café on the opposite end. She sat down on one of the inside tables; it was too cold to stay outside.

He sat there in front of her, on _her_ table.

"One question, that's it and then you go back to my mother and tell her to stop bugging me, that I'm not getting married just because she wants to."

"Listen, I have no idea who your mother is, I came to your store for this." He showed her a crumpled paper that Jean had given him; it had his signature and the order of what he needed. "I work for Jean, he asked me to buy that for him and when I came into your store I …" He didn't know what to say.

"You what? Thought that I'd like to marry you?"

"No! Quit it with the marriage thing. Don't you know who I am?"

She looked slightly hurt by the rebuke. Then squinted and examined every inch of his face, she even smelled him (from faraway of course.) and then sat back straight in her chair.

"I have absolutely no idea who you are." She stated.

Roy just banged his head once on the table and left it there to lie lazily.

A few minutes later a waiter brought two tea cups and two curly bread things with butter cheese, the same as breakfast.

"Aren't you going to eat?" She pushed the plate towards him and gave a bite of her bread.

Roy lifted his head. "Wasn't I supposed to go back to your mother and do whatever you said?" He asked numbly.

"I figured your not one of them. Go ahead."

He bit one of the curly bread corners and took a sip of tea, he was really starting to miss coffee

"So you don't know my mother?" She had taken to long not to ask another question related to it.

Roy rolled his eyes and sighed.

"I swear, I have no idea who your mother is, and I'm not marrying you." She seemed happy about that.

"I told you I figured that part. But do you not know that she´s a great stylist."

"I thought you hated your mother." This woman was confusing.

"That gives you a hint of how good she is, the fact that I admit she is good."

Roy nodded. He was still confused though.

"What's your name?" she asked a bit friendlier.

"Roy Mustang."

"Clarisse Beaumont, call me Claire. Clarisse is my mother."

"What is on with you and your mother?"

"She wants to marry me just because I'm twenty nine, she thinks I'm too old already so she keeps sending these guys to stalk me and try to make me love them, get married and have children. I'm sick of it. She even made a shop with papa's retirement fund, a wedding dress shop. But she got really good at it, great stylist remember?" She bit her bread.

"Wow."

"So… Roy right? British?"

No AMESTRIAN!

"No. Why do people keep mentioning that?"

"To know where you're from. American?"

Roy sighed in frustration; he would never be able to explain these people who he truly was, so it wouldn't hurt to make that up."

"Yeah." He nodded in frustration.

"Really, what's it like at the other side? How long did it take you to travel up to here?"

"Forever." He answered. He had not the least idea of what America was, but he supposed it was far away.

"So how did you end up working for Jean?"

"I have no idea, this girl Antoinette settled everything up with him. Suddenly I was counting buttons on his work room, god I don't even know how to sew!"

"Wow, no wonder he gave you the job."

What? Did she not hear correctly? DO NOT KNOW HOW TO SEW?!

"What? Why?"

"Jean would do anything for Antoinette; he's been in love with her ever since he got here. Actually he was one of the guys that my mother sent behind me, but once he saw Antoinette he forgot anything my mother had offered him to stalk me, and settled in the shop in front of hers."

Jean? In love? And he was starting to think this man was gay.

"You mean Jean De Lorme?" He wasn't sure she was talking of the same Jean.

"Yeah."

He was almost finished with his strange looking bread and his tea.

He felt like an old lady gossiping about young life, but he was enjoying himself. Even though he had no absolute idea who this woman was and why the hell did she look like Hawkeye?

"So back at the shop, I'm sorry for what happened." She apologized. They walked together to the shop.

"That's okay." He didn't want to think of how furious she could be if she started thinking about her family again.

As the chatted they headed down the corner of the Café Street and off the side walk to the street, Roy was always sure to check out both sides of the road, Claire wasn't.

"Hawkeye!" he shouted and pulled her back from the neck in her trench coat. She was slightly startled by the lack of air the Roy's grip in her clothes and the train almost cutting her nose off. But even then it did not escape her notice that he had once again referred to her as "Hawkeye". Who's "Hawkeye"?

When the little scene calmed, he let go of her trench coat noticing he was strangling her with her own clothes.

"You okay?" he asked, not sure if it was for almost getting squatted by a train or hanged by your new friend.

"Yeah, I'm fine.-She caught some air. - But why did you call me Hawkeye?"

Now he wanted to strangle himself.

"I… it's a long story."

"I have time; the shop is always empty these days." She said and crossed the street with him and gently tugged her collar back in place. That's was so unlike Hawkeye.

Sigh. "Okay." He had to make sure to omit the detail that he was dead and that he wasn't from America.

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She moved around the rolls of fabric looking for the right white linen and shoved Roy's crumpled paper in her pocket.

"Uhu?" She urged him to keep going with his story about Hawkeye and the military, American military.

"She was my lieutenant, but I left America to come… here" Where was he again?

"That's it? You were an American Colonel and came here to France to die in hunger unless you found a job? Wow. That's odd. But I still don't get why you call me Hawkeye?"

She folded and cut professionally, folds and cut, fold and cut; ten times.

"You look exactly like her." He said simply.

"Right." She placed the pile of cloth in a paper bag and handed it to him.

"Here, Jean must be waiting for this for a long time. That's seven francs and thirty five Centimes."

"Oh, I don't have the thirty five."

"Don't worry, that'll give you a reason to come back tomorrow." She smiled. He smiled back.

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Maybe life here at the other side of the gate wasn't as bad as he'd thought so. This new girl, the new Riza Hawkeye was a lot different to the real Hawkeye, but seemed like a kind friend, with troubles. A kind friend with troubles.

Roy opened the door to the shop, the sun setting to his back.

"Were where you? I've been waiting forever; I needed that for today you know?" Jean seemed a little stressed.

"Sorry." He managed to say. He handed him the bag.

"I'll need you to buy some more tomorrow anyways, and three yards of patch cloth. I just hope you don't take as long. What took you so long anyway?"

"You have no idea." Roy answered with a big smile.

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Okay, here's chapter 7, chapter 8 will be up soon. As always review anything you wish, like or dislike. No offense.


	8. Shot

Wow I'm amazing myself, I've never written so fast in my entire life.

Hope you like the story so far.

Enjoy!!

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He found her on the bridge near the river; she seemed to like that place, he always managed to find her there.

Her head slightly tilted to one side and her arms resting on the railing as she stared to nothing in specific. A sturdy hair band held her hair in a tight pony tail.

Her face was; as always, showing only her deepest emotions inside her but it was hard to see them. Right now a small frown worked its way out of her as she stared at the peaceful sunset.

She was beautiful; Jack knew that, she was worth waiting for. And she wasn't only beautiful; she was kind and hard worker (to hard). But she had something inside her, something that made her soul heavy and cold. She needed someone to lighten up her weight. The problem was Jack didn't know if that someone could be him.

He walked slowly towards her, processing in his mind a million ways to fix what he had just said and deciding none of his options were worth it.

So he just stood next to her and placed his arms over the railing. She stared at the landscape, he stared at her.

Hard as she tried, she couldn't ignore it when he stared at her like that, but she couldn't look at him either. Every time he did that she felt Roy's eyes burning holes in her face, but if she looked directly in to him, she saw Jack. She brought her view down to the railing on her left; he was standing at her right. That was, she was as far from his gaze as possible.

He smiled; to himself, and stared away into the horizon.

Neither talked, he needed to apologize but he feared that if he tried, it would bring more strange feelings in her that he didn't know and hurt her. She didn't speak because she had nothing to say. She was the one who ran away after all wasn't she?

"I messed up didn't I?" he still had that smile in his face; the sweet one, not Roy's stupid grin, though he had that one too sometimes.

"Big time." She still didn't look at him. She muffled her answer with her hand pressed against her mouth and chin while her elbow rested on the railing.

"I'm sorry."

"Apology accepted."

"It wasn't exactly … millions was it?" He asked with a pang of fear in his voice.

Her eyes squinted slightly like when you touch a fresh wound, just touch. Then she relaxed.

"No, not as many. Three-hundred and sixty-five."

The lump in his throat fell down to his stomach heavily. 365! The millions sounded better, it sounded unreal. But still 365! She even counted them?

He sighed silently and his shoulders unquenched in a funny manner. She smiled.

Finally what he was looking for. He smiled as well. He noticed she didn't look at him; the reason was hard to read.

"Want to go home?" he asked. The conversation didn't seem to move so they might move themselves. The sun was down and it was starting to get colder.

"Sure." She still didn't look at him. He actually felt like he hadn't been forgiven.

They walked silently into the store as Jack turned the OPEN sign to CLOSED and pulled down the OUT FOR LUNCH sign.

When he finished his work on the door; all he saw was the back of her coat trailing behind her, she was already in her room. He felt he hadn't fixed things. She said she forgave him, but acted like she hadn't, or maybe it was just his mind playing tricks on him.

He locked the door to the store and turned off the lights as he pulled himself to his room. Walking through the aisle of his tiny shop was just as cold as it was outside.

"What's wrong with the heat?" he asked himself. He walked past Riza´s room, half closed door. She probably was working on more watches, that woman didn't know when to stop working.

He hurried down the stairs rubbing his arms in a faint action to warm himself.

The heat wasn't off, it was dead. He cursed and walked back upstairs. Riza and he were going to freeze tonight.

He walked to the opposite side near his room were an old dresser sat containing; in this moment, his new/old heating system.

He opened the low drawer and pulled out four blankets. Two for her and two for him. He threw his on his bed and headed for Riza´s room.

The door was slightly open, more like not closed correctly.

"Riza?" he knocked and pushed the door slightly.

"Don't!" she managed to say. And slam the door shut in Jack's face. He waited a few minutes and the door opened showing just her head.

"What?" she seemed annoyed?

"The heat is dead, I was just – he peeked a bit over the door.

"Jack what?!" she looked like she was hiding something, a smile of urgency crept into her face.

"What are you doing in there?" he asked, still trying to oversee something through the crack in the door.

"Jack! I'm chang-." She managed to start but stumbled over a box of watches and left the door wide open showing a Riza in a huge white man under shirt.

Jack turned around as quickly as he could and while his face turned beat red. Riza just covered her legs as far as she could with the big shirt; not very far maybe down to her mid-thighs, and half close the door again.

"There, what Jack?" Now she REALLY sounded annoyed.

"I was telling you, the heat went dead and-"

"You can turn around now."

He didn't.

"I…"

"Turn around."

"I'm sorry." He didn't look like he was breathing, but he turned around and was welcomed by a half closed door and Riza´s face.

"What?" She asked for the third time.

"The heat. No heat. I brought these for you." He managed to move his stiff arms up and hand her the blankets.

"Thanks" she said and smiled. He loved that smile.

"´Night."

"Good night." He answered still looking flustered.

She closed the door and he exhaled. That was awful and awesome at the same time. He had never in his entire life seen anyone naked; or half naked whatever that was, except for himself and his mother, but she didn't count.

He walked to his room shaking his head and murmuring things, trying to keep strange thoughts from his head.

Riza breathed normally with her back against the door and slid down to sit on the floor. That really freaked her out. She smiled and hugged the blankets. Even if everything was an accident, it seemed she still had something in her, enough to make Jack stop breathing. But was she crazy enough to fall for the London version of Colonel Mustang.

She kept the thought on hold for some other day she felt crazy enough (never!). Removing herself from the floor, she draped the blankets around her and cuddled herself in her bed. This was going to be a long night.

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"Good morning."

"´Morning."

He couldn't bear to look her in the face; unwanted thoughts were still fresh in Jack's mind.

"Listen, about …uh." How to put it?

"I didn't mean to… you know. I thought you were hiding something."

"What like a bomb or something?" She joked.

"No, I … I'm sorry. Really I-"

"I'm kidding Jack, its fine."

"Really?" His eyes filled with hope.

_He got it the wrong way. _"No I mean… just knock and wait, you know."

"Oh, right." He didn't seem disappointed though.

They both sat down for breakfast feeling a bit more comfortable.

"So… just curious- he cleared his throat. –Don't you get cold in that um, (_sexy big shirt_) Shirt?" He asked.

"I don't have many clothes and I can't sleep in a dress, don't you think it would be kind of awkward?"

"Right, of course."

Now he knew what to get her for Christmas.

"I finished tomorrow's batch." She changed the conversation. She couldn't sleep last night so she just started working ´early ´

"Great because Mel asked if we could go to her place today, she said she had something to tell us."

"Great."

Melanie Smith was a childhood friend of Jack; she was a kind person, after all she was the one who had lent Riza clothes.

After breakfast and a quick organizing of Riza´s room, they left for Melanie's home.

They walked silently down the street. Jack walked as unaware of his surrounding as always, while Riza kept her eye out for danger, a habit that she couldn't break, even though she knew perfectly that it was unnecessary here. But something in the back of her mind clicked at a random moment and her need for security began. She started; for the first time in a long while, to miss her guns.

Maybe it wasn't the common intuition in fear of attack that trailed after her, maybe it was just women's intuition. Whatever it was it was there in her conscience. Like a minuscule black spot in a white dress nobody sees but you, but it's still there and it bothers you.

That was just how Riza Hawkeye felt walking through the streets of London with Jack to her side.

"What's wrong?" Jack asked. He may not be good at sensing danger around him, but he was bloody good at reading people, he could see through Riza enough to understand what she didn't tell him, that was pretty good.

"Nothing." He didn't really need to know.

"Really? The why are you oddly glancing in an indirect way to every space around us?"

Okay he was really good.

"How did-? Never mind." She wasn't about to discuss how he had uncovered a military technique without even knowing.

They walked the rest of the way to Melanie's house in silence. Riza didn't let her guard down; it still bothered her, that stupid feeling in the pit of her stomach that something was going to go wrong.

They arrived at Mel's house a few miles down the shop. Riza laid her back to the wall next to the door casually. Jack knew it wasn't without its purpose.

He knocked. A few minutes later Mel appeared in the door with her usual long brown hair and her beautiful dress. Her pale features amazed Riza at first, but lately she had been looking in to the mirror herself and concluded the place had something to do with the lack of any darker skin color.

"Hey guys." She greeted. Melanie was always happy, not euphorically unbearably happy, just happy, smiling.

"Hi Mel, how are you doing?" Jack asked with a kind smile.

"Fine thanks."

"Hi Mel." She said plainly.

"Oh, hi Riza. I see the clothes I sent fit you well enough."

They were actually a little loose in every end they weren't meant to be. But they were fine; Riza was never one for tight clothes anyway.

"Yes they're perfect, thanks again."

"So what's this all about?" Jack asked eagerly.

They started walking down the hallway and past the studio towards the living room.

"Oh, well I met these lovely couple who said they knew you two; they said they saw you having tea yesterday down the street. They wanted to meet you."

_You two! Two!_ This wasn't right. They couldn't know the two they had to be from-

Riza stopped in her tracks and stifled a gap. Of all the people she thought of finding on this side (not that she though much about it) she had completely forgotten about them.

"The Rockbells!" She said softly more to herself than anyone in the room.

The Rockbells themselves seemed as surprised as she was.

"It is him" Mr. Rockbell said as softly as Riza had. She looked up at Jack.

They thought Jack was _him_. They thought HE was Colonel Roy Mustang, the one man that had taken away their happiness with their baby daughter. The man that had murdered them.

She instinctively stepped in front of Jack, not because of the Rockbells, she knew they were harmless; they had worked for both sides as doctors in the Ishballan war and even of they though Jack had killed them they wouldn't try doing the same to him, but she still stepped in front of Jack because of someone else. Someone she didn't identify right away because of the quickness of the moment. But she knew he wanted to hurt them, hurt _him_ Roy not Jack. How did she know? He was a pointing a gun at about two or so buildings exactly through Mel's window and to Jack.

The instant she saw him, the instant she stepped in front out of pure instinct. That precise moment the window blasted and Riza felt a sharp pain on her right side.

She gripped it and quickly blood starting seeping through the many layers of clothes she had been wearing.

"Oh." She snapped out of nowhere and knelt hard on the floor. Not until then; about three to five seconds, did Jack notice her doubling over and grabbed her waist.

"Riza?" He noticed the shattered window but not what had brought it down. Not until he turned the now pale Riza around to find a growing red stain in the right side of her waist.

After that she couldn't remember anything but Jacks worried face, Mel and the Rockbells towering over her.

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Hope you liked this chapter; next one will be up in a while. Thanks for your resent reviews and support, please keep reviewing any though, complaint, or compliment about the story so far.

Thanks.


	9. Christmas

Hey there people!! Here's chapter 9, hope you like it.

Enjoy!!

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"So what do you think?" Roy raised his arms in a modeling position showing his new uniform.

"Honestly?" She asked with a hint of sarcasm in her voice.

Roy just dropped his arms unsuccessfully.

"You look great" she smiled. He laughed.

It had been a few weeks ever since he had discovered the French Hawkeye, ever since then he spent all his free time there. Jean never really complained; it was his free time after all. He actually used him only to come buy textile pieces to Claire's shop.

She folded pieces of red satin; toady was one of the worst days in the shop. By the end of the month there was the need of an inventory and Claire asked Jean to lend Roy for those days. She didn't like to admit it but she could barely carry an empty roll of fabric, even less a full one.

So Roy wandered the shop all day at the 23 of December, it was earlier this month because of Christmas vacation. Jean said he had big plans for everyone on this vacation, surprise of course.

"Roy!" Claire shouted from the back.

Roy snapped up and ran behind the counter; she was probably squished under an oxford roll. He had never noticed Hawkeye was so small and skinny; she always seemed strong and effortless. But if Claire was exactly like Hawkeye; and so it seemed, she was her height and her weight, though half of Claire's weight is probably bones and a little flesh, Hawkeye was a bit more muscled. She didn't look like it though.

He actually did find Claire almost smashed against a wall with a roll of fabric pressing her against it.

He easily lifted the roll from over her and she slid down the wall weakly, panting and a little flustered.

"You know, this is kind of a strange job for such a skinny weak person." He teased.

She just glared back. If he had said that to Hawkeye he would be long dead.

He stretched his hand to her, she took it without hesitation.

"I know I'm not very strong, but papa left this shop and I can't leave it like this just because my mother can feed us both with her stupid dresses. Besides that would mean I agree to her marriage terms."

Roy just shrugged. The doings and undoing's of the Beaumont family were so complicated.

Claire explained that her mother was the pushy one, but that the rest of her family; big family, cousins, uncles and all, also considered she should get married.

She even told Roy about the time when one of her uncles got into a fist fight with her papa, just because they didn't have grandchildren, while her uncle had three from his two seventeen year old daughters.

"How can you be proud of that?" She had asked. It was true, coming from a pair of seventeen year old girls it sounded more like a mess up than a nice marriage.

"I need to get going." He brushed his new uniform. He had become incredibly grateful for his very few clothes lately, he had about four shirts and three pairs of pants, plus the sweater and coat Jean had lent him and the uniform he wore to work everyday.

"Really? So soon." She brushed herself as well.

"Yeah Jean is probably wanting me there, well maybe not but… you know near."

"Okay." She shrugged.

He turned around to leave. "Uh. Roy."

He turned back to her. "What are you doing tomorrow?"

Tomorrow was Christmas eve. Right?

"Oh, right. I don't know." He scratched the back of his head."

"Really? Well maybe you and Jean can come and have dinner at my house."

"Really?"

"Yeah, Ill tell Antoinette too."

"Well what about your family." He knew they always got together for Christmas and New years.

"You know I don't like my family. You guys are my family now."

That was true, maybe. But she seemed sad to have it that way, not being able to trust you're own blood the way you like is kind of disappointing. But having friends that could merely substitute that family could make it better.

He smiled, he liked being considered as a family, it felt like he could eventually become a true part of the new world.

"Sure, I'll tell Antoinette too if you want." She nodded.

He took his coat and hat and wrapped them around him as tight as he could. He walked outside to the snow, he used to be incredibly vulnerable to this climate, and he had someone there to protect him. Now it was different, he helped someone like her to escape from her own fears.

This world was turning to be like his retirement at 32.

He opened the door to the Beaumont design shop. There was no one behind the counter so he rang the little bell.

Seconds later a lady in about her sixties came up to the counter. Her hair was almost half white, but the rest was the perfect blonde Hawkeye and Claire had, tied back in a high bun. This must be Claire's mother. It looked like Hawkeye with thirty more years on her back.

"Can I help you?" She asked with a straight pose.

He could tell she was trying to be superior, she had the ´air´, or so Claire claimed. The stupid intimidating feeling she gave you every time you spoke to her.

"Yes, I was looking for Antoinette." He looked past her for Antoinette's skinny figure. She seemed bothered by that fact.

"Oh." She said in a sarcastic manner. She didn't like not being the one people were looking for. Suddenly Roy understood a few of the reasons why Claire despised this woman so much.

She retired to the back with her dignity as high as she could keep it.

"Antoinette! A young man is here to see you!" She shouted to her. He heard the shuffling of scissors and fabric, needles and sewing stuff.

While Antoinette tried to get out of her presumed mess in the back of the counter Claire's mother pulled over to him and examined Roy closely.

"You're quite a handsome young man. How old are you? Do you have a girl? I see you're not married. Would you be interested in making a bit of money?"

Roy stared bemused and scared at the woman's questioning; now he really understood how Claire felt. Her mother was a stalker.

"Um. I'm 32 ma´m. I umm I'm not married and don't have a girlfriend. And I'm not interested in making any money right now. But thank you."

"Hum, to bad. I have an unmarried daughter you know, she is beautiful but she is such a stubborn little lady."

"Wow." Roy didn't really know what to answer.

"In case you change your mind." She pulled a card out of nowhere and placed it in the front pocket of Roy's sweater.

In that moment Antoinette appeared almost falling over the counter.

"Roy!" She seemed happy to see him.

"Hey!" He was happy to see her.

"What's up?" She looked around for any eavesdropping. Mrs. Clarisse was back to her work.

"Claire is having a dinner tomorrow night for us, just you Jean and me. She actually wanted to know if you were coming."

"Really?!" Her face went bright when he said Jean would be there. "I wouldn't miss it for anything; papa is going out with his friends so I had nothing to do."

"So that's a yes?"

"Of course."

"Good. See you tomorrow then."

"Sure, thanks."

She waved and he waved back.

"I'm back!" Roy shouted once he opened the door to Jean's shop.

"Hey, there you are."

"Hi, how's it going?" He had a pair of pants in his hands that he was fixing.

"Fine I guess." He concentrated on his pants. He had thin glasses placed over his nose.

"How did the inventory go?" He asked without looking up.

"Heavy, as always." Roy started taking his coat of.

"I wouldn't bother." He said still not looking up.

"With what?"

"Were leaving in a few minutes, I would keep my coat on." He reached for more thread.

"Right." Roy put his coat back on.

"By the way." Jean kept sewing. "Claire said we could go tomorrow, for Christmas you know."

"Really?" He looked pretty concentrated on his pants.

"Antoinette is going too." He looked up from the pair of pants he had been so abstracted in.

"Really?" It was a different ´really´

"Yup." Roy fiddled with the bindings of his coat.

Ever since Claire had told him about the big teenage crush Jean had on Antoinette Roy had been indirectly teasing the man. Though Jean didn't seem to notice he did it with that purpose, he still felt a satisfying thing about it.

He waited for Jean to close up the shop and toyed with the different things hanging from the walls. The common co-co clock and that sort of stuff were hanging on the baby blue walls. It was six o'clock, had he really spent all that time at Claire's. He spent so much time there lately he barely even noticed.

He didn't know why, maybe It was just that he missed Hawkeye, he always counted on her being by his side, it just felt so strange not to have her following him everywhere, baby sitting him basically.

Then he found Claire and he believed until then he understood Hawkeye. What an awkward man he was.

"You ready?" Jean appeared by the door next to him; coat and everything.

"Sure, I never took my coat off." Jean just smiled.

He had learned to appreciate Jean after the sudden loathe he felt for the man. He got to know him and figured he was a lonely man who lived more for his work then for anyone else. Now that sounded like Hawkeye, the thing with her was that her work did involve someone, him.

Why was it that anything he started to think about had to end with Hawkeye?

"Remember I told you I had big plans for vacation?" He asked, more like reminded Roy of it.

"Yeah, what is it."

"Ill tell you tomorrow." He shoved his hands in his pockets. It was cold outside.

"What?! Then why did you ask me?" This man was even stranger than he was.

"I just wanted to see if you were exited, you know tomorrow's Christmas eve."

"How can I get exited if I don't know what I'm doing?" he was playing to be annoyed. Jean just laughed at his little game.

"Don't worry; I know you'll like it, you all will."

Roy shrugged and dismissed the idea of ever getting this man to tell him.

The walked home silently.

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The next morning it was Christmas Eve. Roy woke up, changed his clothes and went to the kitchen but there was nobody there, the living room was empty as well as Jeans room. Where had he gone?

Outside his window there was snow everywhere, it was beautiful to look at. Amestris was usually hot, but there were days so cold that instead of rain they got snow, maybe one or two inches, but never so much.

He didn't eat breakfast, he grabbed his coat and left to see Claire.

The usual bell over his head proved her Roy was in. Otherwise, who else would come to a textile shop on Christmas Eve? Besides the sign at the door said closed.

"Claire?" He shouted. He never rang the bell.

"I'm here!" she shouted from the back. He came in a while later.

She was kneeling on the floor re-rolling the fabric they were working on yesterday, Roy started to help.

"Hey, how you doing?" He asked as he started with a roll of white silk.

"Fine. Merry Christmas." She said with a smile.

"Merry Christmas." He smiled back.

"So are you guys coming tonight?" she kept rolling her green satin.

"Yup. All three of us. You should've seen Jean's face when I told him Antoinette would be there." He laughed. Why did he have so much fun teasing the man?

She rolled her eyes. "Why do you have so much fun teasing him?"

Roy lifted his hands in innocence. "I just told him she would be there!"

"Yeah, I'm sure you planned that all around. You're so mean." She smacked his shin softly with her hand, probably as hard as she could.

"Am not."

"Forget it I'm not arguing with you, you always win." Hawkeye always won. He chuckled at her comment.

They finished re-rolling all the fabric and headed out for breakfast. More curly bread and tea, he was starting to get sick of it.

"So, would you like to help me?" She asked and took a bite of bread.

"Help you what?" He asked with his mouth full.

"To cook."

Cook! First sewing and now cooking? What are these people trying to turn him into a lady?

"Uh, I don't know how to cook." He didn't know why but even though he thought it was a girl thing, he felt ashamed of not doing so.

"That's ok, Ill show you what to do."

"Ok." He wasn't at all that thrilled, but he had nothing better to do.

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"Ok, stir this."

Roy grabbed the spoon form her grasp and stirred gently as she said.

"Good." She went back to the ham and left Roy alone with a yellowish batter mix.

"That looks good." He said sympathetically.

"Thanks, my grandma showed me how to cook when I was a girl."

"Wow." He didn't know his grandmother, his only real family turned out to be Hawkeye's. Did Hawkeye know how to cook?

Again… Hawkeye.

"I don't know anything about your family. Why don't you tell me something?"

"What do you want to know?" He didn't look up from his batter mix. He wasn't afraid now that he didn't know what to tell her. He had made up a whole new life with a bit of investigation.

"You said you lived in Boston right?"

"Yeah."

"Were your parents from Boston as well?"

"Yeah."

He hadn't actually made it all up, he more like changed a few things here and there, he knew the questioning would eventually come.

"Oh."

"But they died when I was nine. Since I literally turned into a stray, a military man picked me and raised me afterwards."

"Wow, that's sad. He's the one you had that daughter right, the lieutenant that looks like me?"

"Right."

Hawkeye's father wasn't actually a military man; he was actually completely against it. Not until he turned into a soldier did Riza follow him. She actually felt it was wrong to stay there with her father, back then she despised Roy as much as she did her father. After the array incident when she was twelve, Riza was never a girl.

Roy didn't like remembering that.

"What happened to her?"

"She died." He didn't feel very comfortable talking about this; Claire noticed and stopped questioning him.

"You're done with the batter?" Even if he wasn't she took it from him and poured in another bowl.

"What's that for?" He liked stirring, why did she take it from him?

"The cake." She poured sprinkles into the batter and placed in the oven. Then she took the jam and placed it there as well. "There."

She started cleaning the kitchen and Roy helped as well. It wasn't a big kitchen, in fact it wasn't a very big house but she was the only tenant so she didn't really need a big thing. She was serious about not getting married.

"So what about you?" He asked and dumped something's peelings into the trash.

"What about me?" she didn't seem interested.

"You're story. What about you?"

"You know my story Roy, the tragic relationship with my family."

"Well is that all of it?"

"No."

"Then?"

"Well I don't have a very interesting life besides that you know. You're adventure man while I'm, well me."

"Adventure man?" That didn't really seem to be the right nick name.

"Sorry. But you get it I'm a boring person." They walked side by side to the living room.

"You're not a boring person." He consoled her and draped an arm around her shoulder to give her a tight hug. They had dropped non-touching rules long ago. They gave each other hugs and cheek-kisses shamelessly.

"Thanks for your efforts adventure man." He was starting to hate that nick name allot.

"You know all those things that happen to me don't feel like an adventure from my point of view."

"Sorry. It must be hard to be all alone."

"I'm not _all _alone." He looked at her.

"Okay, maybe not like that, but you know, your family, and your her … what was she to you?"

"She was." He wasn't even sure himself. "She was always with me."

She could tell he didn't like this.

"Are you okay?" That was as stupid question.

"Yeah, I'm fine."

"Well you'd better get going; Jean will be wondering were you are."

"I don't even know where he is."

"Oh come on." She lifted herself from under his weight and pulled his hand."

"We'll be here by eight I swear."

"That's fine." She led him to the door.

"Really? Because we can be here at seven you know."

"Eight is fine Roy." She laughed and opened the door for him, he stepped out.

"You know these things we could use time, I can even get Jean out by five."

"Eight Roy, eight is perfect."

"Fine." He turned around to go home.

"Bye." She waved and closed the door on his back. She smiled to herself.

She really hated her mother for trying to get her to marry, but maybe it wasn't so bad having a guy around after all.

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They got there at eight o'clock sharp. He had to drag Jean out of the shop to get there in time and deal with Claire's mom again to get Antoinette out, but they got there at eight o'clock.

"Hi guys." She greeted and held the door open for all of them.

"Hey there." Jean waved.

"Hi Claire." Roy, right behind Jean. Right after him Antoinette almost threw herself over Claire in a huge hug.

"Oh. God." Claire was overwhelmed.

"Oh my god, I feel it's been years since I saw you."

"Well of course if you work for the witch I don't think she gives you much free time."

"Unlike other people." Jean teased.

"Shut up." Roy did spend allot of ´free time´ in Claire's shop.

"It's true." She established. Roy looked annoyed.

"Dinners ready." She said with a smile.

They had dinner like friends, teased each other. Roy could see Jean and Antoinette shared a few glances here and there, Roy just looked at Claire and she laughed at the awkward feeling between those two, it had always been the same.

"So guess what, I've got the surprise I promised you guys." Jean announced.

They rest were quiet.

"I've got four passes for London, were leaving tomorrow."

"London!" Claire shouted and hugged him.

"Merry Christmas guys!" Jean seemed happy.

They all shouted, Roy too even though he had no idea what London was.

"That's awesome." Antoinette shouted.

Claire got up to get the cake and Roy followed.

"So where is, London?"

"In Great Britain." She answered while preparing plates. She didn't seem as annoyed as Jean for his stupid questions.

Great Britain! Finally he would get to know Britain.

She stood on her tiptoes to get a box in a top shelf.

"Hey, um… I got this for you." She gave the box to Roy.

"For me?" Of course who else is in the room.

"Thanks." He moved closer to take the box and placed it on the counter; he fiddled with the ribbons and paper and finally opened the box to see a brand new sweater.

"I knew you didn't have much clothes, so maybe another sweater would do you good."

"I actually had something for you too."

"Really?"

"Here." He took out a small box from his old jacket.

She opened the box easily. It was a necklace, a simple silver string with a small pendant in the shape of a snowflake.

"It's beautiful. Thank you"

"Yeah, its something simple you know I don't have much money."

"That's okay."

"Here I'll put it on for you."

He reached out for the necklace and pinned in front of her. He didn't know why, but he had never felt this strange around Claire.

"There."

"Thanks" She seemed to feel the awkwardness.

She leaned forward and planted a small kiss on Roy's cheek, but dangerously close to his lips. She stopped herself and looked into his eyes.

She didn't even notice when he'd already place his lips on hers. Just a simple peck. Then why did she feel so flustered?

"You…" She didn't eve know what to say.

_You kissed me, on the lips…_

"I'm sorry." He turned around ashamed he had messed it up and rubbed his face with his hands.

Suddenly the floor in her kitchen seemed to need a stare.

"I. No don't worry-"

"Let's just, pretend it never happened okay?"

"Sure, never happened."

He helped her take the plates to the dinner and the cake, but the rest of the evening was somehow awkward.

They all left after the cake. They all had to pack, it was going to be a long trip tomorrow.

How do you spend Christmas in London? I don't really know what to do to with Riza and Jack, since I don't know what do guys do for Christmas I guessed it is the usual but if you wouldn't mind explaining, it would help on the next chapter.

Thanks.


	10. Curiosity

Hey guys, another inspiration act, added to a load of free time. Hope you like this chapter; it's starting to get interesting I guess, even for me.

Enjoy!!

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Riza woke up a few hours later, she felt drained and heavy; probably the only part of her body she could move were her eyes. But managed a grunt of pain when she felt the bullet in her side.

Immediately two heads appeared in the picture, to very well known heads. The two Rockbell doctors looked at her like an experiment, she didn't feel like being kind right now.

"What?" She managed.

They didn't seem offended.

"Check the wound now please." asked from Mrs. Rockbell.

She felt the cold air of her shirt being lifted and then a stab.

"Argh." That hurt.

"It didn't hurt any vital organs, but she did loose allot of blood, we need more blood."

Now Riza really felt bad.

"Where's Jack?" she was worried for him.

"Uh, you should give him a little time." Mr. Rockbell answered while he bundled a ball of gauze.

"What? Why?" She winced, no shouting that hurt.

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Jack cradled his head in his hands while he waited outside Melanie's room. Too much had been recently forced in to his head.

The first thing you could think of when you see a person turn purple and white and see a puddle of blood coming from her side is call an ambulance. That was the first thing he thought when he saw Riza on the floor in that condition.

But he wasn't allowed.

_Riza fell to the floor before his own eyes and immediately bleeding like crazy. She passed out after ten seconds of being on the floor._

"_I'll call an ambulance!" Jack shouted and ran for the phone. But before he could even leave, the two visitors shouted at him._

"_NO!" _

"_Don't" The man said. "We will tend to her." _

"_But she's bleeding to death, can't you see her. Even if you people are doctors you don't have the equipment here."_

"_We have enough." He turned to Mel and asked for gauze, alcohol and a pair of tweezers._

"_What? Are you crazy?! She's going to die if you keep her here."_

"_She wont, it doesn't seem serious."_

"_So?! You won't call a doctor just because you think you can deal with it?" He was at his limit now._

"_Honey, take care of that, I'll talk to him." She nodded simply._

"_Come with me please." They both walked side by side to the door._

"_We can't leave; she'll die if we leave her."_

"_Look, young man. She has at least 48 hours of blood left in her body and as she is being attended by my wife I can bet you she won't loose anymore that she has already. Trust me I'm the doctor her not you. Now if you let me explain to you WHO this young lady is and show you why you cannot call an ambulance then you can choose yourself, but I'm sure you wont risk it." Jack calmed down and headed out the door._

_If they really were doctors they could help her, and anyways he couldn't do anything right now. He would talk to the man and call the ambulance later._

_Mr. Rockbell just hope he wasn't as stubborn as the man he looked so much alike._

_They walked together through the cold sidewalk._

"_Who are you?" That seemed like an odd question to start this._

"_What?"_

"_Who are you?" her repeated._

"_I'm Jack Royalton." Not pleased to meet you, thank you._

_The man stared stunned at him. He had seen plenty of these people, the ones he believed were them and weren't and the real ones that had the same sad fate as them. He just didn't expect to find him._

"_Okay. I'm Dr. Rockbell. And I know lieutenant Hawkeye; I come from where she comes from. Do you know where that is?"_

_Jack scratched his mind for it, she hadn't really told him where she came from._

"_Right, you don't know do you?" Jack denied. But he must know her if he knew she was a soldier and her rank, name and all._

_The man draped an arm around Jack's shoulder._

"_Well you see, Lieutenant Hawkeye, my wife and me. Are dead."_

_Now he really was confused._

"_She doesn't belong to this world, neither do us."_

"_What are you saying?" He wasn't getting it._

"_Did she tell you that you looked alike someone she knew." How did he know that?_

"_Yes, her superior or someone like that." _

"_Yes. Well this superior of hers killed us back in our world, Amestris. We really thought it was the end to it, but we appeared here in London, with a whole different life and nothing but what we were wearing."_

"_Nothing but your clothes?" Now that sounded familiar._

"_Yes. And the same thing must've happened to her; she appeared here and, made a new life." He thought the kid was getting it._

"_So you're telling me you three come from a parallel world to mine, but you died there and therefore appeared here?"_

"_Exactly."_

"_Then you are out of your mind old man, I'm calling an ambulance AND the police." Jack said and started walking back to Mel's _

"_Wait." He grabbed him by the arm._

"_Think. How else would I know more than you do of her? How would I know all you already know to confirm your suspicion?"_

_He was right about that. How did he know so much? Could all this crap be real?_

"_You truly expect me to believe that?"_

"_Yes." He seemed serious about it._

"_Just think about it okay. You can't call an ambulance because they will ask for a social security number and a name. You can't tell them that because she doesn't have one, she does not belong to this world._

_Jack felt unsure, more like betrayed. He ran back to his shop and grabbed a phone guide. There was not one single Elizabeth Hawkeye. He then searched in the library for her name history, but there was no Hawkeye as he had said, she didn't belong here._

_So he sat there and cried on the phone guide. That was probably the last reaction you would get from a man, but he couldn't help it. He felt so out of everything._

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He smeared his red eyes; he knew that what he knew now was not meant to be common knowledge. But he still could wrap his mind around it; that the woman that had been living with him for almost three months didn't not belong here.

He saw Dr. Rockbell come out of Mel's room where Riza was. He stood up and twisted his hat in his hands.

"How is she?"

Dr. Rockbell knew Riza was fine, but he wondered if the knowledge the boy had now was making him like this.

His hair was so ruffled he honestly looked like Roy Mustang, his red eyes showed poor sleep and many crying, there were new lines in his face, worry lines and creases that he probably didn't notice, he also looked paler if that was even possible in this place.

"You can see her, she's awake." He nudged him in the back.

Now that he was allowed to see her he wasn't sure if he was able, he wanted but why?

He gulped hard and summoned all his courage; he was going to need it.

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"Why did you tell him?" She asked Mrs. Rockbell while she dug the wound for the bullet.

"We had to; he was going to call an ambulance, and the police." She said without looking away from her work.

Riza didn't ask anything more, she wasn't completely satisfied about the reason, but it was obvious she had no papers.

"Hi" Jack appeared in the door.

Riza turned her head to him, but didn't answer.

Mrs. Rockbell was still busy plowing Riza´s side, but Jack looked at her and she understood she had to leave, in that moment she could have really sworn this man was Roy Mustang.

"Lieutenant Hawkeye." He addressed sarcastically.

"Don't call me that."

"Why not? You are a soldier after all aren't you?" She could hear anger in his voice.

She didn't look at him.

"How much did they tell you?"

"Why? So you can keep lying to me?"

Riza didn't answer and avoided his gaze all she could.

"Why didn't you tell me the truth Riza?" He calmed down and she glanced at him.

"I couldn't, you would've never understood. Even now I believe you still don't understand-"

"Then explain it to me!" He interrupted.

Riza didn't say a thing. So Jack knelt next to her bed.

"Do you believe that if I didn't believe what that man said to me about your lives, do you believe I would still be here? I would've probably run out the house and leave you here knowing you were safe and not bothering to see you again."

Riza couldn't say anything; she made a mistake by not telling him who she was.

"Tell me who you are." He sat in the floor Indian style and waited for Riza to answer something, anything.

"I was first Lieutenant Elizabeth Hawkeye, from the Amestrian army. I worked under Colonel Roy Mustang the flame alchemist, as and assistant and a body guard. More like a babysitter."

"Uhu." Jack encouraged her; he was not running away from this.

"I worked among four other men, and two boys."

Riza looked away from him.

"I died on a recent suppression of the Ishballan army, and without knowing ended up here in London, instead of under three feet of rubble." She finished.

He had set aside in his mind all his questions.

"Okay, question one what's an alchemist?"

"What? You don't know what an alchemist is?" She stared at him as if he were dumb, wasn't it obvious? He shuck his head.

"Do you know what alchemy is?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about." He seemed serious.

"Okay then, umm. Let's see. Do you know what a transmutation circle is?"

He denied.

"Do you have any remote idea of what I'm saying?" She seemed annoyed.

Jack took his time, and denied again.

This was going to be hard, why didn't he know even that simple term of alchemy? How could she explain that to him?

"You know that's fine, I really don't need to know every detail. I was just mad you hadn't told me the truth"

Actually, alchemy seemed to have a lot to do with how they all ended up here.

Mrs. Rockbell came into the room.

"May I?" she seemed scared of Jack. He just nodded.

She checked Riza´s wound and wrapped it in a bandage.

"There, you're all set to go, just take care of it and it'll close in a few weeks."

Just then Mr. Rockbell appeared in the room.

"Lieutenant, may I speak to you?" He looked at Jack. "In private." He added.

She already felt bad enough from keeping things from Jack. He was staring at her, wondering if she would keep going with it or would she open herself to him.

"Whatever you need to say you can say it in front of Jack."

He already knew everything, what else could he add?

"Very well then." He didn't seem sure about Jack being there but he kept going.

"I would like to know, about the sigil on your back." He breathed.

"Please tell me _he_ didn't draw it."

Now that was something she didn't expect him to bring up. Jack didn't really understand anything that had to do with alchemy.

"Can I see it again?" he asked.

She wouldn't really care if he saw it; he already knew it was there, but what about Jack?

"I- Well." She turned to Jack. He didn't seem uncomfortable with it, if anything he seemed confused.

"You may see it. He didn't draw it and Jack-" She looked at him; he seemed satisfied just by taking part in this.

"Jack, you wont understand this, I swear Ill explain everything when we get home. I wouldn't blame you if you don't want to see it." Please leave.

"That's okay." He didn't move, he wasn't leaving so Riza started unbuttoning her bloody shirt. She could hear Jack go stiff as she slid the garment down to her waist and revealed the tattoo that covered her back.

"Oh god" Mrs. Rockbell gaped; it seemed she didn't know about it.

Mr. Rockbell observed the pattern and traced her skin with his cold fingers.

"If he didn't do it, then who?"

"My father."

"Your father? Who was he and why would he do this to his own daughter." He seemed disgusted.

"He was very well known for his work and the fact that he wasn't very forgiving."

The Rockbells seemed to be scratching they're minds for a name but couldn't come up with any. Jack stood motionless on a chair he had eventually pulled out. His arms crossed over his chest, his expression tense and his knee crossed over his other.

"His name was Silder Hawkeye." Riza said coldly.

She felt both Rockbells tense and Jack's motionless figure at the back, trying his best not to stare at her.

"Silder Hawkeye." He repeated in silence.

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I made this chapter a little bit shorter I guess, sorry about that but I couldn't think of anything that wouldn't jump into the next chapter, so sorry.

Hope you liked it, the next chapter will be up soon.


	11. Drunk

Im reallyrellyreallyreallyyyyyy ... sorry about the reallyreallyreallyreallyyyyyyyy ... long wait, but I got cofused with the betaed chapters an un betaed chapters and the names and all. Im a complete disaster. But still I expect you to like my story ...:D

Hope you like the story so far.

Enjoy!!

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Riza stared at her house. The walls that had seen her grow the aisles she had walked a million times, and ran as a kid. The window in her bedroom were she snuck every night to go to _his_ room and stay up until way past midnight playing chess or any absurd card game. That same house that had almost felt like home until her mother died; was burning to ashes, with its first owner inside.

He was nowhere to be seen; ever since he left to take that stupid military exam she hadn't seen him, and now this. Her house was on fire and her father was inside. She cried panic tears, fat, thick inconsolable tears. But she didn't understand those tears, neither did he.

He was standing right behind her, looking down at her long disheveled hair and her inconsolable tears, the tears he didn't understand.

"He burnt your back." He said softly with a hint of pity.

"He was my father." She turned to face him. The beautiful face he had grown so use too along the years. But it had changed. It changed when she was twelve.

"Save him." He said plainly.

"I can't." Now she cried anger and pity. "He ruined my life when I was twelve." And she cried more, and he knew that once this was over she would not shed one more tear for the death of a human being.

Because people shed tears for their loved ones, and she had none left.

"You killed him." She whispered. She had stopped crying.

"You burnt my home. Our home to ashes. My father should have never taught you. It is your fault I bear the sigil you were meant for. But he knew I would take care of it, he knew I would use it well."

"I didn't do this." He defended himself.

"I swear I will never use that circle. I would never do that to a person. I would never do that to _you_."

"You lie. From now on I hold as much hate to you as I did to him." She had stopped crying and she would never cry again, because he was not a loved one.

"Roy…" He felt a thump in his side.

"Roy!"

He woke up abruptly and felt the sweat come down his body, felt the ends of his fingers and his lips turn cold and then his heart leaped up to his throat and back down. And then he realized he was in a ship headed to London with three new friends, one more important than the others.

He breathed hard, in and out. And he felt a bit better, but he couldn't talk, to many things ran through his head and his tongue at the same time, all mixed up.

"Calm down, it was just a nightmare." Claire smoothed his sweaty hair with her palms and held his head in her hands.

She was in his nightmare, no it wasn't her. It was Hawkeye, again.

"You…" He managed say and cough slightly.

"Me? … Come on I can't be that bad looking to make you sweat like this."

He laughed and struggled with his breathing.

"You okay?" she said with a motherly voice.

"Yeah. I'm… fine."

"Well, obviously you're not fine, but at least you didn't jump into a heart attack."

He smiled. This wasn't her, they were so different and alike, and yet they both seemed important to him.

She smiled back.

"Ill get you a glass of water." And she left the small compartment they shared in the boat.

Roy was left again with nothing but his thoughts and his sweaty clothes. He didn't feel comfortable.

Even though things hadn't been going on as easy as they did before with Claire, they were starting to go back the right way. Jean and Antoinette had left the room a long time ago, they said they went for a walk but it seemed to Roy they had jumped out of the boat.

He wasn't as exited as the rest about this London thing, but he did have a strange feeling about it.

"You feeling better?" Claire appeared on the door with a glass of water and handed it to Roy.

He drank it all at once.

"Thanks." He handed her the empty sat calmly but seemed prepared for something.

"What's wrong Roy?" She had a sad look on her face.

"What? What do you mean?" He was a little lost in the subject.

"Jean told me, he heard you shout thing in your sleep."

"What kind of things?" He was afraid he had said something he shouldn't have while he was unconscious.

"You know, about that girl and… well they weren't very coherent without a story you know."

Okay, so he might have said something by they didn't get it.

"Hawkeye?"

"Yeah."

"Well she's no one you need to worry about." He didn't like the way the conversation was taking.

"I'm not worried about her, I'm worried about you."

"I know, but don't worry, its nothing." Hawkeye use to worry to, about everything… stop thinking about Hawkeye!

"Its okay if you don't want to share it." She seemed a little hurt though, as she felt he didn't trust her.

"No, Claire… it's just. Well…" How to put this?

"Hey don't stress yourself, just forget about it." She placed a hand on his shoulder.

The door slid open and Antoinette's head poked behind Jean's shoulder.

"Hey guys were about to get there, finally. Want to see the view?"

"Sure." Roy stood up quickly. Anything to get away from this conversation.

Claire followed.

The trip to London had been extraordinarily long and she was desperate for land.

Once in the deck Roy felt how everybody's eyes popped open, he felt he had been blind until now.

People usually said once you'd seen Paris you'd seen it all, but for a French person that did not apply. Claire had never seen such a beautiful setting. The sun was just setting over the sea and the rushing in the London port was just amazing. Lights were starting to turn on and the tall buildings made a perfect contrast with the flaming sky. It was truly beautiful.

"I love it" Antoinette whispered as if enchanted in some sort of dream, just like Jean looked, but he wasn't staring at the view.

About an hour later the ship finally got to the port and people started coming down as desperate as them to see land.

It was the 28th of December; New Year was in three days.

"So were are we going first?" Claire asked, bags in hand.

Nobody really looked that inspired to start visiting.

"Umm, Claire I really believe we should get settled first."

"Oh, right." She looked disappointed.

"So were do we go?" Roy suggested the settling part but he had no actual idea of where.

"I umm, I had a few hotels but no real reservation." Jean suggested.

"Lets check them out." Claire really seemed eager about this.

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"What is wrong with all this people?" Jean shouted.

He was worried; that was obvious, they all were.

"I can't believe there's not one single place we can spend the night in."

"Well it is possible since its high season." Claire replied, trying to make him feel better. It wasn't working. He glared at her to shut up.

"Sorry, don't kill me for trying." She lifted her hands in surrender.

"Right, so now what do we do?" Roy asked, trying to keep them from killing each other.

"Well we could…" Antoinette seemed to have an idea.

"Yeah?"

Antoinette looked around as all faces turned to her expecting an answer.

"I… well uh."

"Why don't we try a pub?" Roy blurted out by no reason.

"A what?" Antoinette seemed a little surprised.

"You do know pubs are meant for drinking don't you?" Jean corrected in fear his friend had turned loopy.

"Yeah but, you know …" He knew pubs in Amestris sometimes had spare rooms for hopeless drunk men, he had used them himself, he just wasn't sure there were any here… but there were pubs.

"Yeah, Pubs sometimes have spare rooms for drunk hopeless people, just in case; you know, though I know they're not very nice, it's an easy rent." Claire said exactly what Roy was thinking.

"And how do you exactly know this?" Jean asked surprised by the fact she knew so much.

"I, well … I haven't always been like this you know." She was right, only drunk people knew that kind of stuff.

"So what do we do to get these rooms?" Jean asked.

"Uh, that's kind of like the hard part." Claire seemed to be doubting her brilliant idea.

"What?" Antoinette asked.

"You see, these rooms are actually for real drunk people, no sober guy will be offered the room." Roy added.

"And how do you know that?" Jean squinted at Roy.

He just flopped his hands as an assumption.

"God am I the only straight person here?!" Jean shouted.

"No." Antoinette faintly added.

"Then it won't be very hard to get you two drunk. You know low alcohol toleration" Jean looked disappointed at Claire. He had no idea she was that kind of person, or Roy that kind of man.

"Fine." He agreed.

"Lets go in here." Roy pointed to a place swarmed with people called Clover's Pub.

"Two draft beers please!" Claire shouted to the bartender.

"And a Gin!" She shouted again.

"Nice choice." Roy stood next to her.

"Thanks." She smiled.

"I'll have a Vodka please!" Roy shouted to the now agitated bartender.

"Nice choice." Claire said back.

"Thanks." He added.

Finally they squeezed themselves through the crowd and got to a booth in the back were Jean and Antoinette were waiting. Jean seemed a little paranoid.

"This isn't right, I assumed we would get a hotel easier. Now we have to be drunk to sleep under a roof."

"Relax, it's not that bad you know." Roy reassured him.

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"So, wea are we zleeping?" Jean asked.

After just two draft beers his cheeks had flushed red and his senses were obviously clumsy. And the forever-straight tailor was officially … drunk.

Roy had had a two vodkas and a draft beer and was still faintly sober. Antoinette was almost falling asleep on Jeans shoulder after one-&-half draft beers. And finally Claire seemed sober, but Roy knew she wasn't as much because she wasn't talking, she was just sitting there with her arms crossed over her chest.

Waiters were pacing around the empty bar pulling chairs over the tables in the dim light. And a lady that seemed to be encharged walked over to the only group of people left.

"Excuse me. Would you need a place to stay?"

"Yes please." Roy added slightly tumbling.

"I'm afraid we only have two rooms though."

"What?" Roy blurted.

"That's okay were married." Antoinette added.

What? Roy stared at Antoinette in her strange drowsy state. It was either two rooms or the street.

"Yes, of course." Roy added. And glanced at Claire who was still not moving much.

"Okay then follow me." The girl said.

The four of them struggled to stand and walk forward. Roy and Claire were able to walk and inspected the first room and then entered the last one.

"Well I can sleep with Antoinette here and you two guys sleep on the next one. I'm honestly ready to crash." She said and threw herself on the queen bed.

She was abruptly awoken by Jean and Antoinette slamming the door open, and crashing on the wall beside it.

"Wow, you wea wright, guyz. They reary habe rooms up hea." He laughed funny and closed his arm around Antoinette's little shoulders, slinging it over her neck. She smiled and kissed her way from his chin to his lips.

"Yoa zweet." She added, smiled and continued kissing him until they both fell to the floor in stupor laughter.

"Okay, I believe my sleep is gone for at least two days." Claire cried with her eyes wide open in horror of seeing her long time friends that way. As drunk as she was, she wasn't _that_ drunk.

"Roy?" He couldn't keep his eyes from the scene either.

"Yeah?" Claire didn't move.

"You're not as drunk as I am, take Jean to the next room, Ill take care of Antoinette."

Okay so maybe she was a wise drunk person.

"Sure." He took Jean from the floor in his rebellious attack to leave the floor, or Antoinette.

"Waid, wad a ya doin!?" He shouted at him.

"Im taking you to our room." Roy said plainly.

"I don wanna zleep wi you. I wanna zleep wi hea." He pointed in the direction Claire was fighting to get Antoinette in the bed.

"You know I rike ya buddy, but just nod dat wa" Roy sighed.

He could hear Claire laughing.

"Stop it Claire."

"Jean you thea?!" Antoinette shouted. Apparently she had ran out of Claire's grasp into Jean.

"Hey!" He said sweetly and opened his arms for her.

"Jean come on, you're gonna regret this later you know."

"Leave me arone Roy! I rove hea!" He shouted in Roy's face.

Amazingly Roy stared into his eyes and let go of his arm as they both closed the door to the other room.

"What are you doing?!" Claire shouted at him.

"I… I."

"You what?!" Claire seemed mad he had let go of them, but she had let go of her first.

"I believe him." He said plainly, his eyes looked heavy.

"What?! And that's why you'll let them go like that, you have no idea what they could do… to each other."

"Oh, no I have a pretty good idea."

Then he felt the slap.

"You moron!" She shouted and started banging the door.

Now he started to believe he was drunker than she was. He rubbed the now red cheek; seemed Claire was stronger under the influence of alcohol.

Eventually she surrendered to beating the door to pulp and crouched next to Roy in the hallway. Right out of Jean's door.

"I'm sorry I slapped you." She said plainly.

"It's okay, I deserved it."

"Yeah you did." She smiled.

"What?" He stared at her.

"You did, but I do to."

"You know Id never touch you."

"I know"

"You do?"

"Honestly Roy who do you think I am… Don't answer that."

"What? You're drunk you know? I know I should've kept them from leaving. But he was just so … honest you know. I know if anything happens Jean will take care of it. Actually Im sure, Jean is a responsible man that's why he doesn't drink, gamble or do anything I use to do.

I actually need to tell you something Claire. You probably won't remember tomorrow but I feel like a liar not telling you this. I don't come from America. My home is Amestris, Im a military Alchemist and I died, miraculously crossed the gate and ended up in France. And Im in love with som-"

He felt a head bob on his shoulder, Claire had fallen asleep on him; she probably hadn't heard anything he had said to her and probably wouldn't remember anything that happened today.

By no absolute reason he started laughing at nothing.

Tomorrow was going to be a hell of a day.

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Finally its done, it took me forever to finish but Im done.

Please review …


	12. Truth

Just because I have been a really bad and mean writer (and disorganized) Im posting two chapters in one. That and because otherwise Ill lose it again...

Enjoy!!

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"So, now that we're being sincere with each other. Who was Silder Hawkeye?"

Jack asked walking slowly next to Riza; he kept shifting her weight on him, it had to hurt.

"Would you mind…uh, waiting till we get home?" She sounded annoyed. He smiled and kept his pace. He loved the fact that she called it home.

"Fine."

It was the longest walk ever. Even though they both spent a lot of time walking up and down the same street, it took a lot more time now that Riza couldn't walk right.

When they finally got 'home' he swiftly made a pot of tea and gathered two cups. Once this was done he took both cups to the dining table and handed Riza her cup.

"Here, So-"

"I know you want to know Jack, just give me a minute would you." She seemed annoyed; she was a lot grumpier lately.

"Okay."

"Okay," She breathed. He nodded.

"Your back. Its-"

"Burnt. I know. The sigil in my back … It's" She sighed.

"Okay Jack this is a pretty hard topic for me so don't force it to much okay?"

"Sure, you know I would never do that." Riza stopped and looked him in the eye, an odd grin on her face.

"Okay so I might be a bit of curious person but that's not too bad sometimes."

Riza smiled slightly but it slowly faded.

"You're exactly like him, you know?"

"Like who?" He asked not thinking really.

Riza widened her eyes in motion to tell him _whom_ she was talking about.

"Oh, him. Yeah I don't believe that, there are just a few things in common, but I'd love to meet him if he's so important to you-"

"He's not important to me. Not the way he should be. And I wasn't important to him either, not farther than the strict military boundary."

"You, the more I get to know you; the real you that is, the more beautiful I figure your life has been."

Riza stared at him suppressing a smile and wide-eyed.

"What?" That came out in a half laugh.

"Yes. I mean, my life has been so boring ever since I was a kid. My father worked with watches and therefore I do too. My childhood, my teenage years even my adulthood are nowhere near as exciting as yours." He seemed exited himself.

"So you think my life has been exciting?" She still couldn't believe him.

"Of course."

"Jack, I was a soldier, a murderer. I was a sniper for God's sake! I've killed people, I've guarded a man that in some people's eyes deserves hell itself, and I've guarded him with my life! I had the most turbulent childhood any girl has ever had and he was there too, ever since I was five. I would trade my life for yours any moment!" she was desperate.

"Then don't you think it's time to let him go," Jack whispered. He didn't feel the need to free anything, she did.

She stared at him dumb founded.

"Ever since this man came into your life, you have been a disaster. Now that you're dead; or whatever you are, and he isn't here, don't you believe you deserve a break of being the support and allow someone to support you."

"I can't do that."

It scared her just to think what she would be without even the memory of Roy Mustang keeping her straight every minute, keeping her from falling apart and becoming someone else, someone she never was.

"Why not? He's dea-"

"Don't say that!" She shifted in her chair slightly.

Jack looked surprised.

"I know what happened to him, you don't need to remind me. I can't let go of him so easily when he has been there all my life. You don't understand Jack, you'd have to be me to do so."

Slowly she walked to her room slightly cramping at her side. Shouting was probably not a very good idea. But she was mad.

"Riza?"

She turned with a deep frown to face him.

He smiled, an understanding smile.

"I'm sorry." He stood up and walked through the same hall as her.

"Rest well." He kissed her cheek and walked past her to his room, leaving a stunned Riza in front of her door.

That night both Jack and Riza were thinking of someone. The exact same person even thought they didn't know that from each other. Lying in their beds sleepless, they both thought of Roy Mustang.

Riza remembered, her life, her awful life as she had stated before. And she understood that it wasn't so bad, she just made it worse. And that Roy had been there ever since bad things started to happen, but he wasn't responsible for them.

And Jack couldn't remember him, but thought of him and Riza the first woman he had truly learned to appreciate besides his mother. He thought of Riza and Roy Mustang, and he finally knew something that probably not even the same Riza could figure out herself. It was his secret key to many riddles that composed this complicated person. He smiled to himself, lying in his bed with a smile in his face. Thanks to Roy Mustang he understood many things about her and his life.

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I know this is extremely short but its meant to be like that, I'm actually getting to 'the part' so that's why both this one and next chapter will be shorter than the rest. Hey there hope you like this chapter.

Enjoy!!

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"So, now that we're being sincere with each other. Who was Silder Hawkeye?"

Jack asked walking slowly next to Riza; he kept shifting her weight on him, it had to hurt.

"Would you mind…uh, waiting till we get home?" She sounded annoyed. He smiled and kept his pace. He loved the fact that she called it home.

"Fine."

It was the longest walk ever. Even though they both spent a lot of time walking up and down the same street, it took a lot more time now that Riza couldn't walk right.

When they finally got 'home' he swiftly made a pot of tea and gathered two cups. Once this was done he took both cups to the dining table and handed Riza her cup.

"Here, So-"

"I know you want to know Jack, just give me a minute would you." She seemed annoyed; she was a lot grumpier lately.

"Okay."

"Okay," She breathed. He nodded.

"Your back. Its-"

"Burnt. I know. The sigil in my back … It's" She sighed.

"Okay Jack this is a pretty hard topic for me so don't force it to much okay?"

"Sure, you know I would never do that." Riza stopped and looked him in the eye, an odd grin on her face.

"Okay so I might be a bit of curious person but that's not too bad sometimes."

Riza smiled slightly but it slowly faded.

"You're exactly like him, you know?"

"Like who?" He asked not thinking really.

Riza widened her eyes in motion to tell him _whom_ she was talking about.

"Oh, him. Yeah I don't believe that, there are just a few things in common, but I'd love to meet him if he's so important to you-"

"He's not important to me. Not the way he should be. And I wasn't important to him either, not farther than the strict military boundary."

"You, the more I get to know you; the real you that is, the more beautiful I figure your life has been."

Riza stared at him suppressing a smile and wide-eyed.

"What?" That came out in a half laugh.

"Yes. I mean, my life has been so boring ever since I was a kid. My father worked with watches and therefore I do too. My childhood, my teenage years even my adulthood are nowhere near as exciting as yours." He seemed exited himself.

"So you think my life has been exciting?" She still couldn't believe him.

"Of course."

"Jack, I was a soldier, a murderer. I was a sniper for God's sake! I've killed people, I've guarded a man that in some people's eyes deserves hell itself, and I've guarded him with my life! I had the most turbulent childhood any girl has ever had and he was there too, ever since I was five. I would trade my life for yours any moment!" she was desperate.

"Then don't you think it's time to let him go," Jack whispered. He didn't feel the need to free anything, she did.

She stared at him dumb founded.

"Ever since this man came into your life, you have been a disaster. Now that you're dead; or whatever you are, and he isn't here, don't you believe you deserve a break of being the support and allow someone to support you."

"I can't do that."

It scared her just to think what she would be without even the memory of Roy Mustang keeping her straight every minute, keeping her from falling apart and becoming someone else, someone she never was.

"Why not? He's dea-"

"Don't say that!" She shifted in her chair slightly.

Jack looked surprised.

"I know what happened to him, you don't need to remind me. I can't let go of him so easily when he has been there all my life. You don't understand Jack, you'd have to be me to do so."

Slowly she walked to her room slightly cramping at her side. Shouting was probably not a very good idea. But she was mad.

"Riza?"

She turned with a deep frown to face him.

He smiled, an understanding smile.

"I'm sorry." He stood up and walked through the same hall as her.

"Rest well." He kissed her cheek and walked past her to his room, leaving a stunned Riza in front of her door.

That night both Jack and Riza were thinking of someone. The exact same person even thought they didn't know that from each other. Lying in their beds sleepless, they both thought of Roy Mustang.

Riza remembered, her life, her awful life as she had stated before. And she understood that it wasn't so bad, she just made it worse. And that Roy had been there ever since bad things started to happen, but he wasn't responsible for them.

And Jack couldn't remember him, but thought of him and Riza the first woman he had truly learned to appreciate besides his mother. He thought of Riza and Roy Mustang, and he finally knew something that probably not even the same Riza could figure out herself. It was his secret key to many riddles that composed this complicated person. He smiled to himself, lying in his bed with a smile in his face. Thanks to Roy Mustang he understood many things about her and his life.

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I know this is extremely short but its meant to be like that, I'm actually getting to 'the part' so that's why both this one and next chapter will be shorter than the rest.


	13. Hangover

So lets say I was really confused about it all, and I'm trying to get rid of all the chapters already betaed even if theyre interlocked with the ones that aren't… I m a disaster

Enjoy!!

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Roy and Claire had spent the whole night outside. After Claire fell asleep Roy eventually did as well, but they both were woken abruptly by a pretty loud shout, followed by a girl scream.

Jean busted through the door with nothing but a sheet wrapped around his waist and found Roy and Claire in his door.

"Roy! Claire! What did I do to her?!" He shouted. He looked paranoid.

"I'm actually not very shu-" He started but was silenced by Claire knobbing her elbow on his ribs.

"Where's Antoinette?" Claire asked with a worried face.

He didn't say anything but looked inside the room with the same paranoid face.

Claire busted inside the room to find that same expression in her face. She was covering herself with Jeans shirt and was seriously questioning what she did last night.

"Claire I. What happened?" Claire had no idea how to answer that.

"I, well you … you and Jean." She looked out the door where he was still standing holding the sheets as tight as he could around his waist. Then Roy came in.

"Claire could I have a word with you in private." She felt thankful for that.

He pulled her elbow and dragged her to the aisle outside, far away from Jean as well.

"Claire what are you doing?" He asked nailing her to the wall; in the dark her eyes looked almost as dark as _Her's_

"I, I have no idea." She was stunned; his eyes were illuminated by a soft ray of sunlight and looked almost blue.

He grabbed her shoulder rudely and dragged her downstairs to the bar. Just by looking downstairs she could start feeling the hangover she was going to get.

"Hi, good morning." Roy said quickly to the lady behind the counter.

"Can I have four bloody maries please."

"Sure." The lady answered and retired to prepare them.

"Okay." Roy answered and stood there just waiting for them.

"What? We're not going to help them, they have no idea of what happened."

"But they will be able to get through with it. You'll see."

Claire stared at him as if he was insane.

"You should know about that. They need to get coherent with each other, maybe we could just remind them a little bit of what went on yesterday."

"Do you remember what happened yesterday?" She asked non-challantly. He hesitated.

"I, well sort of." He wasn't really sure of what had gone on last night and he was starting to feel its side effects.

"Thought so." She sure didn't remember either.

Bu he did remember something, a little. In all his splendorous slumber he had told Claire something.

"Uh, I do. Wait, Claire do you remember something you shouldn't know?" That was a hard question, considering he didn't know himself.

"Like what?" Of course she had to ask that.

"Uh, I don't know."

"Well if you don't know I don't either." Nice answer.

"We should get these to them." She handed Roy two of the coctails and headed back upstairs.

Jean was sitting on the floor outside the bedroom, with an awfully gloomy face. He was pale, confused and hurt… and he felt like throwing up.

"How is she?" Claire asked.

"How are you?" Roy asked.

"I'm a bit out of it, I just can't believe I screwed it up." Claire didn't know what to say to him.

"You don't know if you screwed up." Apparently Roy did.

"What?" He seemed even more confused.

"Yeah, its not your choice to know if you messed up or you didn't, it's her choice." He pointed to the door.

"You guys know how I feel, it wasn't meant to work like this."

"Obviously you shouldn't have suppressed your feelings so long."

"Who could have thought I was going to get drunk one day anyways, I don't like drinking, I don't like gambling I'm a straight man. I don't do that kind of stuff."

"I know." Antoinette opened the door, she was fully clothed now.

Jean couldn't say anything, he didn't feel like it, he just stood up in his sheet managed clothing.

"I, I … I'm sorry. I swear I had no idea-."

She shushed him and placed a finger on his lips.

By now Roy and Claire had sneaked downstairs.

"Last night was fine, even if I don't remember much or if I feel like sleeping half day and puking the other half." He chuckled.

"Yeah me too."

"You know I love you."

"No I didn't." He never wanted to assume anything, not jump to the wrong conclusions just because he had a hunch.

"Well now you're sure." She hugged him and he kissed the top of her head.

"You have no idea how long I've waited."

"I have a hunch."

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There! done, I'm just filling a few holes before I get to the real chapters. I'm sorry if it was short.

Thanks for reading I hope you liked it and please review.


	14. knowledge

So this is the end of disorganization. Hope you liked them …and sorry. I hope four chapter in a day is enough to make up for it.

Enjoy!!

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"Jack?" Riza woke up the next day, pretty late for her. She wasn't feeling very well probably due to the amount of blood she had lost.

"Jack?!" She couldn't seem to find him anywhere in the house. It was eleven o'clock in the morning and he was nowhere to be seen. That same second she heard the bell to the store ring and peeked out over the counter.

"Jack is that you?" He was taking of his coat.

"Hi, did you miss me?" He had an evil smile in his face.

"Not really, I just woke up." She didn't really choose her words well; she looked and felt more worried due to the devilish smile of his.

"What?... Where were you?"

"I was at the library," he answered and picked up a huge pile of books he had brought with him from the floor.

"That's a lot of books." She was amazed.

"The state library is the best one. You can find anything there, even Alchemy."

Now she got it.

"What?"

"I've been reading, you know?" He lifted the book pile in explanation.

"I can see that," she answered warily.

"But I need you to explain a few things."

"Sure." He looked exhausted, and she guessed he had been up all night reading.

She sat next to him and opened the first book, it was about Alchemy, and was about a man named Nicholas Flamel and the philosopher stone. She knew about the philosopher stone, but not about Nicholas Flamel.

"What is this?" Maybe Jack had read more about it. She showed the page to Jack.

"Oh, I read that one, you see… this man he made the Philosopher stone in a laboratory, and with that stone he could change plain lead into pure gold, could you imagine that?! I wouldn't need to work at all!"

Lead into gold? This man was honestly very confused.

"Okay, this isn't it, sorry."

"So you can't turn lead into gold?" He seemed disappointed.

"Well, first I'm no Alchemist. My father was and Roy was as well. But they couldn't exactly change lead into gold."

"Too bad."

"Jack, we need to talk about this first."

"What's wrong?" He seemed eager.

"You can't do this."

"Why not?"

"Because you're not an alchemist, you live in this world and as far as I know you can't use it here. The Rockbells told me."

"Really?"

"Yes. Are you sure you want to keep on with this?"

He thought a little, more like hesitated.

"That's ok, I jut want to understand you a bit more, this was part of you're life and I want to know."

She was amazed by his interest in her life.

"Thanks, Jack… for everything."

She did feel thankful, and he noticed. He could read people easily.

"Whenever you want."

They started studying, and studied the whole day, stopping only to get a cup of tea and bread. At about six o'clock Riza's stomach growled.

more than questioned.

"You're hungry," he stated.

"Well, yeah all we had was a cup of tea and bread. But it doesn't matter if-"

"I'm hungry to you know."

"Oh. Well-"

"Come on Ill take you out for dinner."

"No, you don't need to really we can just-"

"I want to."

She stared at him.

"You're not really asking are you?" The British accent was finally kicking in, she was starting to feel British herself.

He thought about it a while.

"umm…No" He took her hand a drew her out the door like he had done millions of times before.

They had a simple dinner in their favorite café, and talked about so many things until that the streetlights were lit and the coffee shop eventually started closing. They finally started walking home slowly; they didn't want the night to end.

"You know what? I like London; I would love to live here one day."

"That's not possible you know right? Unless you're called some Prudencia Ortiz, like those people they bring from the lower Americas"

Riza laughed.

"You have a funny accent."

"I think you're the one with the funny accent. You stick out like a soar thumb," he teased

"Stop that, you know I really want to belong here, somewhere."

Suddenly the conversation had turned completely.

Riza was quite for a second and Jack walked beside her just as quite. Just for a few seconds they didn't speak.

"You know what?"

"What?" She asked.

"You do belong here."

"No I don't."

"No, you do, much as anyone walking these streets."

"Why are you doing this?" She was intrigued why he thought she belonged here.

"I need to talk," he said plainly.

"About what?" Now she was asking way many questions.

Jack stopped near a light post, she stopped to.

"About you." He seemed sad and she was not sure why.

"Why what's wrong?" She was confused.

"I know something about you eve you don't know, something very curious and very tough. Just promise me no drama."

She chuckled. "Since when am I the one with the drama?"

He placed a finger on her lips to shush her; this was her sign that he was serious now.

"I like you, I like you a lot, more than any woman I have ever known."

Riza didn't say anything, so he kept talking.

"But I know something, about you, that you don't."

He didn't seem nervous he seemed more like sad, that he was losing something he had never had a chance to have.

"Do you know what I know? I'm the one who knows how to read people and all and it took me ages to figure it out."

"As deep in love as I am with you, you will never love me back . You might love me, but not in the same way I love you. Do you know why?"

She couldn't speak so she moved her head.

"Because … you're in love with your superior, Colonel Roy Mustang." He tried to make fun of it, but he couldn't bare it.

"What?" Riza finally found her voice.

"Yes, I finally figured out what had you so bloody attached to such a place, that world of yours. It's him, you have lived your entire life on his page and when you turned it to a blank page you didn't like it. Besides, your face when you speak of him, your voice. The way and the things you speak about him. You're in love with him Riza."

"So that's it?"

"What?" That wasn't the answer he expected.

"That's all you have to say about me?"

"No, wait. And you think to little of your self, for the great person you are. And you're also breath-taking beautiful."

She was smiling sunshine "That's it?"

"Yes." He was sure now.

She moved slightly closer to him.

"You know? You're right. I am in love with him, I just didn't know that was it, I saw it on a completely different page."

"So?" He wasn't expecting any of it; he actually just needed to get it out of his system. He expected her to… well he hadn't really thought of any scenarios.

"So I won't love you like I love him, but I will love you just enough."

And she kissed him, right under that lamppost she started to kiss him and he took advantage. He was so delighted he couldn't stop. He shoved his arms into her coat and around her waist making chills run up her spine from the cold. She locked her arms around his neck so tight he bent down to support her. He had never been kissed like that before, because he had never been loved so either. She was right; she wouldn't love him as she loved her superior, but he could live with that.

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I'm finally getting to right chapters, were its worth writing up till 2 AM… LOL. Just kidding, though it is worth it if you guys are going to read it and if I don't fall asleep in classes the next morning, I'm starting to hate that part of college…


	15. Awkward

Ok so here I am again. Sorry for the YEARS without writing anything but I was real busy!

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Roy and Claire stared at each other blankly. Then looked back at Jean and Antoinette.'

"Are you sure about this?" Claire needed to reassure herself.

"Yes, of course!" Jean confirmed with an arm draped around Antoinette's shoulders.

Claire looked back at Roy who was as stunned as she was.

"But, you're leaving us here. All alone, by ourselves"

Now Claire looked bewildered as Roy stuttered.

"Well yeah! You know, we want to make it official and all. Considering we have nowhere to stay we'll be going to see Antoinette's grandparents up north and stay for just a few days. You know it's easier to find rooms for two here in London"

Well that was true, but still not reassuring enough. And they couldn't go with them, it sure sounded awkward.

"We'll be taking the train this evening and we'll be back in 3 days. Just in time for new years" He looked truly happy.

Too happy for Roy Mustangs likings.

"Well I guess we can spend a while, I think we should book a place first of all and I know a few places around we could visit perhaps. It's really not that bad you know." Claire was really trying her best to reassure herself as much as Roy. So she winked at him and he just nodded.

"Sure then, hope you have a great time and I'm glad everything came out right for you guys." He smiled as honestly as he could, pushing his stunned self aside.

They all walked to the station with all their stuff as if they were going and yet they weren't. It couldn't really be that bad now could it?

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"Soooooo? What are we doing now?" Claire asked standing in the middle of a great plaza with plenty of places to visit. museums, cafes, shops and many more.

"I don't know. You said we'd have fun, and find a place and…"

"Find a place! Right!" Claire jumped in her spot and grabbed Roy's wrist once again. He was sure there was nothing good coming out of this.

They found a place in the nearby plaza, small but confortable place. Two bedrooms joined by a bathroom. It was full of fancy stuff.

"Oh god! Look at these Roy!" She rampaged showing him the mini Shampoos and mini towels and mini everything.

"Uhu" Roy wasn't really interested. He threw himself face first into the bed.

"I'm real tired" He said muffling his face in the pillows while Claire clearly still seemed exited about it.

He lifted his head all of a sudden. There had been a loud thump. "Claire? You okay?"

"I'm fine! I'm fine I'm… Oh God!" Roy didn't really know why he bothered asking. He lifted himself from the bed with a groggy feeling and took a three step hike to the bathroom where he found Clair stuck in the bath tub, she was having trouble trying to get out.

"Come here" He said lending his arms to her an pulling her up. Boy she was clumsy, Hawkeye had never slipped, why should she? She was perfect after all how could someone so well trained fall so easily.

"You okay?" Roy asked once again holding her shoulders and inclining backwards taking in if she certainly was alright and she was. So he let go of her.

"Sure, I just, bumped my head" She rubbed the back of her head. Roy slowly rubbed her head caringly.

"Take care when you shower ok? It might get harder to help you there" Roy answered as he moved away turning his back on her not noticing her blush.

"Suure, you never know when you'll die" She joked trying to force strange thoughts out of her head. However she didn't notice Roy stop dead in the door and once again, while still rubbing her head, bumped into his back. "What's wrong?" She asked.

Roy was stunned when she asked, interrupting his sudden train of thoughts. 'die' She said. Suddenly everything made sense. Did he really have to die again to go back to his world?

"Roy!"

"Uh?" He snapped completely, noticing he was in the way he moved towards the bed. "Sorry." She went past him, looking quite strangely at him.

"What's wrong with you?"

"Oh, never mind" He lifted his hands waving them to dismiss anything that might look weird.

She still looked strangely at him but dismissed it as she made her way to the bed and throwing herself face first.

"So what are we doing now?" She asked lifting her head from the pillows. Not receiving an immediate answer, she felt the cushioned bed weight down.

"I don't really know." Roy stared at the beautifully painted ceiling. It had an image originally made in Rome some really long time ago. The image of a naked man reaching out with his finger to another naked man but mucho older. "God's touch you know?" Roy stared to his side to see her staring back. "The painting" She referred.

"Really? Is that it?" To Roy it looked no different from two perfectly normal human beings touching each others fingers.

"You've never seen it?" Claire seems amused by it.

Roy was an atheist, no tin his world had there been anything that could prove to him there was actually someone out there that was superior to the human race. "No, it looks like two men to me."

"It is two men" Ok, now he was confused.

"Why would God look like an old man? He's weak and well, old."

Claire smiled. "That's it, that's the reason why."

"God is weak?" Roy seemed even more confused by the minute.

"He's not exactly weak. He became human to live among us and be with us when we needed him." Claire seems quite happy with this theory. But Roy wasn't entirely satisfied.

"Do you believe in God Claire?" He seemed curious as to why Claire believed such nonsense.

"Of course I do. Why wouldn't I?" Roy seemed surprised as he had plenty of reasons not to believe that someone so benevolent would actually be here. He sat up looking down at her incredulously.

"You honestly ate that bullshit?" Roy looked quite despised by it while Claire looked quite offended.

"What's wrong with you? I have my beliefs and you can have yours there's no problem with that. " She sat quite offended as well. Roy took a little thought to it. His lieutenant had no beliefs, none of his men that had lived war were able to buy the fact that there was someone protecting them among them. If he was, why did he leave them alone? Why did he let Riza die and these Ishbalans, they weren't saved by their gods.

"I just can't see people being fooled." He rested his head on his hands resting his elbows on the bed.

"Who said we're the ones being fooled.?" Claire had strong beliefs on it.

"Oh believe me you are." Roy had strong beliefs as well.

"What do you mean? Am I just weak and stupid as well now?" Claire felt insulted.

"It's not that, I can't believe in someone so shallow so blindly."

"Why blindly? Can't you see everything around us? Nature? The fact the sun comes up every day? The entire ocean?!" Claire always got carried on with these issues. Riza never showed emotions at all, she had strong beliefs but had no need to share them or fight for them in the wrong manners.

His short train of thought was interrupted by a puffy pillow slammed in his face.

"What's wrong with you?" Roy shouted.

Claire looked sad and confused. "What where you thinking of Roy?" No it was his turn to look confused.

"What do you mean?" he dismissed the pillow to the bedside.

"I may be no genius or I may not be very sharp or strong. But even I can tell the way you stare at me and I still don't understand."

"How… do I look at you?... " He seemed to be getting more confused by the minute.

"Antoinette noticed as well. There's moments you stare into distance, and sometimes when you stare at me. I know you're looking at me but… you just don't seem to be thinking of me. You look, lovely." She was angry, confused, desperate and embarrassed all at the same time. This was a real rush of emotions.

Roy just looked dumbstruck. "I… I can't tell."

"Sure thought so." She angrily moved out to the balcony leaving him alone sitting in the bed alone with a pillow.

What was he doing wrong? Why did he keep thinking of her? She was gone now wasn't she? He had no one left so he might as well enjoy what he has now.

He tossed the pillow aside and stood up to the balcony. She was resting her back to the side fence staring to her side, a warm cosy sun bathed half of the plaza. He moved closer but she still wasn't looking at him. She was really mad.

"Come one, it's going to get cold."

"So I'll freeze my ass off."

"Very well then. I'll freeze my ass of next to you. Maybe that way we won't turn to icicles as quickly."

She stared back at him as he moved closer. He tried hugging her but she refused flopping around to free off the embrace. " I don't want you! You don't want me! I know you're looking for somebody else!"

"I'm looking for no one! Calm down will you!" Just as he said so she knocked her elbow right into his eyebrow. "Ouch!"

"Oh my god! Are you all right?" As soon as he freed her she ran to take a look at his eyebrow. "Yeah I'm just fine" He said rubbing his eye.

"Come here" She brought his eyebrow to her lips and gave him a small kiss. "There, papa always kissed my bubus."

Roy stared at her quite amused. As close as she was he pressed his forehead to hers and as he knew she would pull back he pressed his arm hard against her back. She immediately blushed.

"What are you doing?" She asked nervously as if he were some stranger. He smiled in return to her nervousness.

"What do you think I'm doing?" He kissed her cheek close to her nose.

"I-I'm honestly not sure." He kissed lower close to the corner of her mouth.

"Guess again." The smile on his face was pure evil. He moved a bit further to his left farther from her lips.

"Why are you doing this?" She was getting redder and redder, so much she was sweating. Her palms were cold and her hands shaky.

"Do you love me?" He asked nonchalantly. She stood still a bit surprised to his question. However, she knew the answer as much as he did.

As close as he already was to her mouth he pulled her bottom lip corner softly so she turned and kissed him back.

This was heaven as married women called it. She understood her mother and why she needed her to have a husband, but it was not for the pleasure of it as much as she enjoyed being with Roy. She felt him embrace his other arm around her waist and drag the first one lower. Was this to much? Was she giving in to everything her mother had always planed for her? Where was all that she had planned up for herself all alone. She now understood the reason of having a man in her life but necessarily the need her mother claimed for. She felt him lean a bit forward arching her back into a perfect position while pressing her hips against his. He was right, he was a great kisser.

He pushed her backwards pressing her back to the wall in the balcony view and placing his hands in her waist running them up and down. He used to be a ladies man he caught bimbos in dead bars and had the usual one night stands. And not one of those bimbos had ever loved him. Not one of those bimbos had ever showed him that much in one kiss. It was pure sex, always, but not now. He felt her hands shift from his neck to his chest, feeling every single part of it in her palms and finally … pushing him away?

"This is wrong, I still don't know why you're doing this? Is it just to please yourself?"

He was dumbstruck. "No! not at all. Why would you think that?"

"Because I was fighting with you about those stupid faces you make when you see me. And that would sound perfect for any whooping lady who would be lucky enough to have you, but I'm you're friend. If you make a mistake I will still be there."

So it hit him, he felt he needed her, but was it really her. She reminded him so much about her, so … if he couldn't have Riza… But Claire was no second serving dish. She was a person, a real friend. So it hit him, all those things she said about him dating bimbos and leaving them for the night 'They're still people sir, and they deserve to keep that much.'

"I'm sorry, I can't do this. " He moved back and stared at the sun now very low, so low he could see his breath in the air.

"What is it?" She seemed genuinely worried.

"I do enjoy being with you, I do see you close to me, but, still there is something about you that you wouldn't understand since I barely do." He felt frustrated about what was happening to him.

"Try me." She crossed her arms over her chest. He really didn't know how to explain to her what she really meant to him. Her smile, her blond hair, her amber eyes and her firm stand. "You're someone else… " He blurted out.

She did seem confused.

" I mean… There is someone else." He corrected, though it ended up worse, she just seemed hurt now. "Argh!... I … don't know how to say this! Really!.. " He ruffled his hair in frustration and slammed his face in his hands.

"Your in love with someone else?" Her voice showed certain disappointment.

"No! Not in love" He certainly didn't know himself.

"So, you're not in love? With anybody?" She seemed quite confused as well.

He sighed. "Look, I'm not really from around you know that right?"

"You're American aren't you?"

"No, I'm not from that so called America. I'm from Amestris a Country in some world parallel to this one."

"You mean you're an alien?" It seemed like the only answer to this, to her.

"No!... I'm not an alien. I, what is an alien anyways?" He seemed even more confused but, he dismissed that off at the moment.

"I think it would be best if you sat down." He took her by the shoulders and drove her to the bed and sat her down and sat in front of her in the bed.

"I'm an alchemist, I can create and control fire with a simple snap and burn down everything." He saw she wanted to start asking again but he shushed her before she tried.

"Wait… - He placed a finger to her lips. – Let me explain." He continued.

"I was a soldier, yes. I was a murderer of the Amestrian army, a dog of the military. I killed people burning their flesh and all. I had companions, five of them, they were all very loyal to me. I was their colonel you see. Breda, Fuery, Falman, Havoc … and Riza, the only woman. Riza, is exactly like you in every physical mean possible. She was as blond as you, she was as light skinned as you and her eyes were as hazel as yours. She was your same height, your same body structure and everything. Except for a few things." He grabbed her hand and turned to show her palms.

"Things were different there, she was a soldier as well, a very bright one, the brightest one if you ask me. She deserved more than me. She was a sniper, she really loved her guns, her hands were calloused in all the right parts to hold a gun rough in some sides and soft in others." He let her hand drop and pulled a bang of hair.

"Her hair was shorter, she had cut it straight for training purposes, she claimed it was easier to work around with short hair and she didn't really mind looking like a boy." He caressed the corner of her eye.

"Her eyes where much more colder than yours, not necessarily because she was mad all the time. She had seen allot during war, being young for it we all had that in our eyes. They were dark like blood sometimes and sharp as they had to for her precision. But they were always welcoming if you needed her." He caressed the corner of her mouth.

"Her smiles was rare, but as many rare things, it was beautiful. Always the crack of sunshine in a rainy day. It was a sad smile sometimes, she had a burden to carry and a mission she sometimes took to seriously." He let his hand come down from her face.

"There was something nobody else knew, only I did, that lived, all others were dead and long gone, that would be her father the designer. She was bearer of an awful curse across her back. A transmutation circle. This usually was very private to her, but her father had kept her for me. It was an atrocity the way he did it, and still she kept it for me."

"Did you love her?" Claire seemed captivated by his story. She completely disregarded the fact he was speaking of an entirely different world.

"Love her? She was my subordinate. Why should I?" He seemed bewildered.

She seemed sad in realization. "You loved her, I mean. You talk about her as if she were your entire life. You look at me, because I'm like her and I remind you of that feeling."

He didn't really like where this was going. "Anyways, I died in an attack and winded up here the last time I checked. I went through the gate and I believe my punishment was to come to a world with no alchemy. All I did and everything I was, it was stripped out of me and I became no one in this place."

"So you lost her?" She still seemed stuck in the explanation about Riza.

"I did, but that's not the point. I'm here in my own hell and I'm guessing I need to die again to go back but, I'm not honestly very sure."

"So you're thinking of killing yourself to go back to that world of yours?" The idea suddenly struck her. It seemed honestly reckless.

"I will, I'm an alchemist and I have nothing to do here in this world."

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Again, I really need to apologize after so much time without updating. I hope you can forgive me and you enjoy this chapter. I promise I'll update more regularly.

Enjoy and review if you may…


	16. Confusion

Ok, So I'm back again. I'm here to stay I promise I'll do my best effort. Hope you enjoy this chapter.

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This had to be his favourite lamppost. He will remember that lamppost forever and ever. After an affectionate kiss under it with the most beautiful and complete woman he could find. He had to give the lamppost some credit, or maybe it was the chilly night, or maybe Riza had had too much wine. He didn't really know why he was laying in her bed with beautiful blonde lady he had found stray some time ago. She was fast asleep, but he couldn't help but frown at the events from a bit earlier.

She had kissed him under the lamppost; she was the one that wrapped her arms around his neck. But he had to come out as a newbie and tremble at something so new.

They both entered the shop in silence, in an awkward mood as to what should they do next. Given the recent events, the relationship status was … what was it anyways.

"So… " He said nervously. He hadn't taken his coat off; he only dropped his bag filled with books to the floor. Riza turned to look at him in confusion.

"What next?" He asked utterly confused. He did seem desperate. His shoulders slouched down and his face contorted in the most confused grin someone could wear.

"Well, next… " Riza walked closer to him. And stood right in front of him staring at his tall figure. He dropped the bag immediately as she placed her hand in his chest. She could feel his heart beating repeatedly and quicker by the minute. Hell, he could feel it pounding in his throat. She started removing his coat, first one stiff arm, the other. Sex? He wasn't ready for sex! Hell, he wasn't ready for anything that had happened that evening. He wished the savage him that had kicked in earlier was back here now.

"You take your coat off and you hang it here." She took his coat and placed it in the hanger next to hers. She looked at him with an innocent smile, as if she was instructing a baby where to place his things.

Now he really felt stupid.

"Oh, right." He was kicking himself mentally. Of course it wasn't sex! Was he really that desperate? It was Riza; Riza Hawkeye was not going to sleep with him just for one kiss. She wasn't a slut.

"What's wrong?" She asked.

"Nothing! Why?" He still seemed nervously awkward.

"You look disappointed," She stated. He gulped hard; he wasn't sure of what he was going to do or if it was even right.

While Riza was already walking to their rooms. He grasped all the courage he had in himself and walked over, more like, strolled. Riza turned around about to say something just in time to catch his mouth in hers.

She was terribly shocked at his behaviour but gave into the kiss knowing he was probably nervous and it may have taken quite some effort.

He gave in little steps until he cornered her against the wall next to her bedroom door. He couldn't take his hands off her ivory face, her soft skin and hair were terribly inviting. And yet he stopped, he stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers as if to make sure she was the right one and she was still there. He pressed his forehead against hers and finally kissed her forehead and retreated with a serious "Goodnight" and not even a short glance back to her.

She stood there for a while; staring into nothingness, with her mouth a gap. She brought her fingers to her lips. That was one fierce kiss. "Goodnight" She said with a smile to a closed bedroom door.

And so after such drama he couldn't sleep, he hadn't had the courage to ask her about them. What where they? Where they still friends? Where they dating? Should he send sheep to her family? She had no family!

He stood up in pijamas and walked across the hall to her bedroom. She was fast asleep; even sleeping she was still and quite almost an unnoticeable angel. He walked over in the cold hardwood floor, sat in the bed and rested his head in his arm. She didn't even flinch.

He caressed her cheek with the back of her finger and she only sighed heavily. He rested his head next to hers and felt her rhythmic breathing on his face, it was a sweet sent to wake up to every morning. He pulled a strand of hair that crossed her face and she sighed even louder. Afraid she might have woken up he stopped dead. "Colonel?" She said softly almost inaudibly. The look on her face, the sighing. What was he even doing here?

He had to ask himself many times why was he so much in love with a woman with such a disastrous unresolved love affair. She dreamt of him, at night, in her head. It was him, 'The Colonel' not 'Jack the Horologist' in her head at all times and even when she didn't control it.

He sighed deeply and dropped his had to her face. A sad smile crept into him. It was fine, not perfect but fine. He could pretend to be her beloved colonel if it pleased her, he would do anything to please her even if it was become the man of her dreams, literally.

A slight chuckle sneaked into his chest, this was funny. The first time he was actually in bed with a woman his age and she had to be asleep completely acknowledged about it and he was pretending to be someone else. It amused him how low men could fall for someone they cared for.

He stared at the ceiling for a while and then astonishingly fell asleep with a certain peace within.

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Jack had never slept so well in his entire life, not as far as he could remember. Not until he felt a small soft finger poke at his left cheek. He winked and blinked out a little sunlight streaming through the window. Then he looked to his left where the poking finger was proceeding. Hi face immediately contorted to one of utter embarrassment, red as a beat.

"Jack, why are you in my bed?" She asked politely as if she had just found her dog sleeping there. He shouted and fell off the side of the bed.

"I'm sorry. I just… Ugh forget it." He picked himself up with the little pride he had left and bee-lined out the door muttering numerous insults to himself.

Riza was as dumbstruck as she had fallen asleep. He had acted strangely, so she believed she needed to talk to him.

She used a nice nightgown Mel had pre-owned but didn't really like it being so short. Riza had not had many options but she didn't really linger in her nightclothes too long really.

She wrapped the garment as warm as possible and walked across the hall to open Jack's room just too see him laying in his unmade bed with his hands pressed to his eyes and muttering insults to himself.

"Are you… alright?" Riza asked slightly taken aback by all his strange behaviour.

"Oh I'm just fine you can go ahead and use the bathroom first if you want. I'll just use it to hang myself dead later."

She frowned a bit angered by this and moved to sit next to him in his bed. "Jack?" She touched his arm lightly as he uncovered his face. " I might be risking to ask this out of sheer politeness but I will still do so. What's wrong?"

His face of disbelief should have won an award. "What do you mean what's wrong?! You just found me sleeping with you!" Now that came out wrong. She blushed a slight pink and he slammed his hands back to his face.

"Oh my god. I, will need a paper bag to walk around you now." He felt utterly embarrassed. She didn't really know what to say.

"Why would you do that I like your face just like that." Now that didn't come out as right as she wished it had. He uncovered his face and sat up in his bed next to her. "What?"

"Well, you know. I like you. Just like that, with all those stupid events and your own cursing and insulting yourself. The sleeping in my bed is still a rare subject but I like you." He knows she liked him. After she was the one kissing him last night under that lamppost.

"I take it your not the best with women."

No kidding Sherlock…

"It's ok, I understand." She stroked his face softly and he seemed much calmer and happier by it.

"However, I do want to know what you were doing there." She stated as a matter of factly.

He didn't really know what to say. "I'm confused." He blurted out. She frowned again.

"What's wrong?" She asked softly.

"Well, what are we?" He asked as if the answer weren't obvious. "I mean, us. Together?"

She looked down at the mattress. This was going to be a bit of a talk.

"I like you Riza, Hell I could even say I'm in love with you but, I don't know if I'm standing in solid ground. After last night, I honestly didn't expect what I got, not that I regret it really it was the best I've ever had. I mean, what did it mean?"

"I'm sorry Jack, I know this is confusing." It wasn't confusing. She didn't even know what it was.

The thoughts in her mind were actually screaming at her in that moment. She was against it due to her previous bad encounters with other incidents but she wasn't a military woman anymore. She wasn't a soldier, she could relax and melt out that strict frozen lifestyle she used to have all around one single person. She was trying to convince herself it was right to be with Jack even though her other half was kicking herself mentally. But she still agreed that she had to leave her old self behind in order to become someone Jack could be with. An open person, a bit more carefree and well... Basically cut him some slack.

"Uhhh ok." She shacked as if she was getting chills down her spine. "Well this may seem very unlike me but. I believe we can just, 'live in the moment' as young people call it." The phrase sounded so foreign in her tongue she couldn't even believe it herself.

Jack stood dumbstruck at her as if she were some kind of badly turned out experiment. "Really?" He asked incredulously.

She just sat up straight and confirmed "Yup"

Jack wouldn't buy it. He knew better to her. "So…" He closed in on her supporting himself on his right hand he narrowed the space between their faces. "You believe in 'the moment' then?" He spoke slowly, his breath caressing her cheeks and making her sweat inside out. He wasn't playing any moves, he didn't know how to play any moves, but he knew Riza Hawkeye enough. He stared deeply in to her deep big warm honey brown eyes. She only stared back nervously aware she was being evaluated under his sight. He had a very keen sight just like his and it was burning holes in her skin.

By no apparent reason, nerves maybe, she jammed her lips to his forcibly not without first closing her eyes tightly as if it took allot of effort.

He seemed quite surprised by it, taken aback. She pushed him down to the bed so he laid down on his back as she caressed his chest very slowly. He gave in easily. He rounded her waist with his arms and pulled her closer.

"I want to change, for you. I don't know what we are either." She said closely, her sweet breath caressing his face and plastering a smile on both of them.

So maybe he was to ahead of himself. Maybe he just panicked for a serious relationship. Maybe … just maybe he could try and live this up.

She didn't love him, and she knew that as much as he did. But she considered this as a chance to her new life. And maybe after all she could get used to it all.

She cuddled her head into his arm and drew circles in his chest while dumbly stared at the ceiling.

"So, ready to get to work?" He asked softly.

She smiled briefly. "Sure."

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They both worked hard that day, happy with themselves they finished almost all the orders they had left for the week and prepared a light dinner, some tea and biscuits. It had been a productive day and they were both tired.

After dinner, Jack sat at the table reading some of the books he still had. Alchemy was an extremely sensitive science, it was hard to understand and it had no chance to make mistakes. He found something interesting but was too confused so asked.

"Hey Riza?" He asked out loud to make her attention. She turned back from what she was doing to look at him.

"What's human transmutation?" He asked nonchalantly, he didn't know what he was getting into.

"What?" She did seem to get what he asked. She just didn't seem to grasp it all at once.

"Human transmutation. It says here you can do people, is that right? 'The power of decomposing, and reconstructing'" She seemed shocked.

"Let me see that book." She reached over the table and took it from his grasp leaving him empty handed and thinking he had made something wrong.

'The power of decomposing and reconstructing' was the books title. The name was unfamiliar. 'Darius Babcock' was the writer's name. But what shocked her the most were the credits. In a single white page it read. 'To my brother, may Ishvala protect him.'

This was an Ishvalan, and he knew about alchemy. And there was only one Ishvalan she knew that was able to use alchemy, but he was dead. Or so she thought. She checked in the address, it read 'Thetford King St, Thetford, Norfolk IP24, UK'

"Thetford…" She thought out loud mistakenly.

"Oh that's a lovely place, beautiful countryside." Jack added given he didn't really know what this was about.

"Do you know this place?" She seemed confused.

"Yes its beautiful there, nice place to get away from the city."

"And by any chance do you know a man named 'Darius Babcock?" She asked curiously.

Jack racked his mind for a name but couldn't find any. "Never heard of him. Is he a famous

writer?" He peeked across the table to see what she was looking at.

"Do you know any Ishvalans in England?" She asked getting more curious as to why was this man here.

"Ishvalans? What is that?" Jack seemed to get curious about it as well. He rounded the table and read the credits as well.

"I think we need to pay him a visit." She looked seriously at Jack and closed the book down.


End file.
